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| Fury after women writers excluded from 'books of the year' Campaigners incensed after Publishers Weekly's top 10 titles of 2009 ignores female authorsUS trade magazine Publishers Weekly has come under fire for failing to include a single woman in its list of the top 10 titles of 2009.From Richard Holmes's history of science in the Romantic generation, The Age of Wonder, to Blake Bailey's Cheever: A Life, Geoff Dyer's novel Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, Daniyal Mueenuddin's short story collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders and David Small's graphic novel memoir Stitches, Publishers Weekly's all-male line-up has drawn the ire of a group of female writers."The absence made me nearly speechless." said poet and creative writing professor Cate Marvin, co-founder of new US literary organisation Women in Letters and Literary Arts (WILLA). WILLA has gathered more than 5,500 members since it launched in August with the aim of bringing "increased attention to women's literary accomplishments and [questioning] the American literary establishment's historical slow-footedness in recognising and rewarding women writers' achievements".The group pointed to new books published this year by Lorrie Moore, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Rita Dove, Heather McHugh and Alicia Ostriker. "It continues to surprise me that literary editors are so comfortable with their bias toward male writing, despite the great and obvious contributions that women authors make to our contemporary literary culture," said Marvin.Announcing the list, novelist and journalist Louisa Ermelino said that PW "wanted [it] to reflect what we thought were the top 10 books of the year with no other consideration". "We ignored gender and genre and who had the buzz. We gave fair chance to the 'big' books of the year, but made them stand on their own two feet," she said, adding that "it disturbed us when we were done that our list was all male".Poet Erin Belieu, WILLA's other co-founder and director of the creative writing programme at Florida State University, said that "when PW's editors tell us they're not worried about 'political correctness', that's code for 'your concerns as a feminist aren't legitimate'". "They know they're being blatantly sexist, but it looks like they feel good about that," said Belieu. "I, on the other hand, have heard from a whole lot of people - writers and readers - who don't feel good about it at all."WILLA has now launched a wiki list of "great books published by women in 2009", which already includes AS Byatt's The Children's Book, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's The Thing Around Your Neck and Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry.Publishers Weekly's top 10 books of 2009The Age of Wonder by Richard HolmesAwait Your Reply by Dan ChaonBig Machine by Victor LaValleCheever by Blake BaileyA Fiery Peace in a Cold War by Neil SheehanIn Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal MueenuddinJeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff DyerLost City of Z by David GrannShop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. CrawfordStitches by David SmallPublishingAlison Floodguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
From the archive: Marcel Proust: Death of well-known French novelist Originally published on 20 November 1922(From our Correspondent.)PARIS, SUNDAY.Marcel Proust, foremost of "young novelists" of France, died yesterday. He was fifty years old and had been in poor health from childhood. It is probable that he was as well known abroad, especially in Holland and England, where Marcel Proust Societies have recently been formed, as in Paris, where his work was enjoyed by a select minority. His style was difficult and obscure, and his intricate, exquisitely delicate meditations and analysis of emotions could never have appealed to the mass of readers. Outwardly and in his habits he was a strange being. Very pale, with burning black eyes, frail and short in stature, he lived like a hermit in his home, which was open to a few privileged friends, amongst precious furniture. Yet by fits and starts he loved to re-enter the fashionable "night-life" of Paris. His apartment was lined throughout with cork in an ineffectual attempt to keep out the uproar of the noisiest city in the world. Most of his best-known work was done after he reached the age of forty-five years. Of all idols and masters of present-day literature in France he is most likely to have won a place which time will not take away.Mr. Chesterton's PoemsTHE BALLAD OF ST. BARBARA AND OTHER VERSES. By G. K. Chesterton. London: Cecil Palmer. Pp. x. 83. 7s. 6d. net.In verse as in prose Mr. Chesterton is a brilliant, a versatile, a copious executant, he has perception, imagination, humour; he pours out of great vials his assurances of love and wrath. The reader, who, being a reader, has the merciful privilege of interrupting in the deluge when he likes, pauses at times to wonder why, with the use of so much decision, so little seems to be decided, and the conclusion he arrives at is that Mr. Chesterton out of date. Mr. Chesterton has not reflected that it is useless to exhibit impetuosities that no one shares, nor, further, that if no one shares your impetuosities, they have probably, in your own mind, less substance than you suppose. There was a time when children went on crusades to the Holy Land. Mr. Chesterton affects to wonder that we do not do so now. We do not; and Mr. Chesterton may take the postures of a Crusader and imagine a crowd about him if he will; he is not persuasive. The religious mind of the day is attentive, meditative, agnostic even; the day of assurance may return, but it is not our day. [Mr Chesterton is] a believer in a generation of unbelievers. B.S.Marcel ProustPoetryFranceguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Policing Controversy by Ian Blair Ian Blair's memoirs might have been written too soon, says Vikram DoddSir Ian Blair's tenure as the commissioner of Scotland Yard was the most controversial in the modern era of policing. It ended when, in October 2008, the newly elected Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson, told Britain's top police officer he had lost confidence in him, and he became the first commissioner in more than a century to be ousted from office. Barely a year later, Blair has produced his memoir, Policing Controversy.He had to deal with terrorist attacks that caused mass murder on London's streets, his officers killing an innocent man, a force in need of modernisation, an unprecedented political furore around policing, and a never-ending news cycle. He was billed as a liberal police officer, with the result that rightwing papers and recalcitrant coppers damned him as obsessed with political correctness. Sometimes the best argument for Blair was the nature of his critics.But Blair's fall from office was in part caused by his ability to dismay his closest allies, his inability to take criticism, misjudgments that made bad situations worse and a capacity for gaffes that meant he could not be left alone for long near a microphone. In the book, he rails against all critics; his senior colleagues, be they gay or Asian, the Tories, the Liberal Democrats. There is one uniting theme; they are wrong, he is right. Of course memoirs are a place for authors to put their side of the story, but the line between self-belief and self-delusion is thin, and Blair's navigation of it is too frequently unsteady. This is a shame, because parts of the book, as of his time in office, show real promise. He opens with a clever narrative of the 7 July 2005 attacks, with the story rooted in the experiences and actions of three ordinary officers. It is a difficult device to execute and it is done with flair.But then Blair becomes weighed down by recrimination and self-justification, seemingly without end. Even a withering line about Brian Paddick, the senior offer who clashed with him, cannot save it: "He was the only man I ever knew with a painting of himself on his office wall."Blair faced many tough challenges, but in case after case, his personal judgments and actions made the situation worse for him and his officers.Those who were publicly loyal to him were privately aghast at his decisions, his behaviour, and his inability to listen. His tenure was haunted by the death of an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes, whom his officers mistook for a suicide bomber. Blair claims not to have been aware for 24 hours of real fears that an innocent man, and not a terrorist, had been killed. This is despite many of his colleagues having such fears. There is precious little hint that Blair understands, even now, why many find this position odd. He managed to give the appearance of an attempted cover-up by trying to block an independent inquiry into the death, as required by law. It seemed as if the force was blaming the victim for getting himself shot, and while Blair says this was a mistake, he fails to mention that he himself was involved in drafting the early press statements. He also decided to fight a criminal prosecution over the shooting, which Scotland Yard lost. He is a clever man, yet spends pages in the book claiming health and safety laws should not have applied; it is clear he did not understand that the prosecution was about a string of catastrophic failures which led to the death and endangered the public.As he departed office, the supposed liberal was in a position where all six of the top ethnic minority officers in his force were suing, or had sued, for racial discrimination. They included assistant commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, the most senior ethnic minority officer in Britain and part of the leadership of British policing. In one line Blair's supposed awareness of racism seems to desert him, when he damns not just Ghaffur but many who have suffered discrimination: "Like many who had faced prejudice in their lives, however, Tarique seemed to see slights where none were meant."Blair ends up being pleased when a Conservative MP denounces the Black Police Association, a group he claims to have once supported. It adds weight to one senior police officer's observation that he is liberal in theory, but not when things get tough.Perhaps he wrote his memoirs too soon; it's also evident from some recent events the book covers that a significant part was rushed. He is absolutely entitled to feel hurt that his office, if not he, was treated with disdain by a careerist politician on the make – though one inadvertent winner from this book is the mayor, whose decision to oust Blair may have been for the wrong reasons, but is only bolstered by the memoir's tone and content.Blair has a readable and well thought-out last chapter on the dangers of politicians controlling the police. In his foreward/preface he previews the theme by saying: "A police service that serves one political party or individual is an emblem of dictatorship." Other parts on the unique history of British policing, and its fight for operational independence, are a useful primer. But these pertinent points are overshadowed by much of the rest. Statesmanlike and peevish do not sit together easily.One chapter starts with Blair quoting from Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquy. Hamlet might have had too much, but if only the former commissioner had a little of Hamlet's self-awareness and self-reflection it would have been a better commissionership, and this would have been a better book.PoliceVikram Doddguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Letters: A thank you for Eurostar's marathon rescue I was on the second of the Eurostar trains that broke down in the tunnel and am most grateful for the way we were looked after (Travel chaos, 22 December). The train manager gave regular information over the tannoy and I settled down to enjoy the two small bottles of red wine and a Christmas pudding I bought from the buffet. My copy of the Guardian circulated among some of the other passengers who weren't asleep, and I read a novel until I went to sleep myself.When we transferred to the rescue train, there were perhaps 50 firemen in yellow uniforms who guided us along the service tunnel, helping those who needed help to negotiate stairs, while a team of people were operating a kind of marathon runners' water station, handing out bottles of water to all. The rescue train was indeed uncomfortable, with no seats. The 100 or so people in my wagon took things out of their suitcases to create makeshift cushions and pillows, putting on coats and hats and scarves against a chill. One senior fireman walked through and spoke to us and answered questions. A policeman walked through and asked if anyone needed medical assistance. No one I saw seemed distressed, while all the children slept on top of their parents' bags and cases. Uncomfortable, yes, and I appreciate some people seem to have had it worse than others. But I would like to say thank you to the Eurostar staff and the emergency services whom I saw.Chris HickeyBerkhamsted, Hertfordshire• Eurostar has a chairman and eight directors, none of whom appear to have a professional engineering qualification. So, they don't seem to have a clue what to do when their trains break down. When the banking system went into meltdown, it turned out that banks were run by marketing men, grocers and the like.David ButterworthAbingdon, Oxfordshire• Eurostars cancelled. Continent cut off.JES BradshawSoutham, Warwickshire Channel TunnelRail transportTravelFirefightersPoliceguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Linklog: Cereal fiction, The Road's prose, and more Irish cereals: now fortified with vitamins, iron and literature.• Steven Poole has some problems with the prose of The Road.• Some writers are writers, some writers are commentators.• Gary Indiana has a blog, of as distinctive a form as you'd expect. (If not quite to the extent suggested by the post that tipped me off to it.) Peter Robinsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |