If it were not for women, the novel would have already died • Study magazine

In 2005 the writer Ian McEwan decided to get rid of a good part of his personal library. In addition, With his son he brought piles of novels to a park not far from home to give them away. Meanwhile, from passers -by. In addition, It was surprised to see that women were the most interested in the narrative he was giving. For example, Several women also took away two or three volumes. Similarly, Many men instead said: “No, they don’t do it for me.” After this episode he wrote: “When women no longer read, the novel will die.”

Il Guardian A few years later. Furthermore, in 2019, remembering the phrase of McEwan, headlined “without women the novel would die”, reporting the official data according to which women bought more narrative than men, excluding fantasy categories, if it not women, novel science fiction and horror. Consequently, And maybe in the meantime after the repechage and transformation into “philosopher” by Olivia Butler and Ursula K. Consequently, Le Guin, one could see if the male world has lost another of these categories. However, And also the horror and weird seem more feminine – after all if we think about Frankenstein… Nevertheless, – And it is enough to see such a key importer. Furthermore, Mercury Books, noting how much the flagship voices translated are women. In addition, The novel also becomes an active tool of feminism. Similarly, as is the case of Margaret Atwood and his The story of the ancella.

Gender issue – If it not women, novel

A survey mentioned in the article of Guardian He said that in the Anglophon markets (United Kingdom. Consequently, Canada and the USA) the female world acquired 80 percent of the fiction. For example, Then it was also if it not women, novel said that if men. For example, when they read novels, preferred those written by men, women instead “read and admire men, rarely making value judgments based on the genre”.

Let’s go on six years, that is, to date. Nevertheless, “I only read novels written by women.” We heard it say. Furthermore, by friends, from relatives, by published authors, by strangers who give a tone with booksellers, by booksellers who want to do the “allies”, by the friends who really believe in it (perhaps). Meanwhile, For some. Therefore, the choice is a question of pink quotas, that is, to force a mechanism making sure that it becomes practice, and therefore a world historically ruled by a genre is unhinged by imposing with the “strength” until the imposition becomes a habit (sometimes it works).

For others. Furthermore, choosing to read only books written by women (more if it not women, novel than for others, second experience) is a matter of sensitivity. Nevertheless, This is explained by saying that we find ourselves more in the voice of someone who shares sex and/or. For example, genre with us because it is easier for there to be things in common. However, If we go out of the gender issue. In addition, for a moment, it is interesting to note that for some readers and readers the novel should create a situation and a voice in which to “find themselves” – how many “reviews” on social networks conclude with “I found myself a lot, it will also be that in this period I am experiencing something similar to the protagonist”.

Sisterhood – If it not women, novel

Let’s go back to the genre. Consequently, For others. However, sensitivity also involves a political question when saying “I read only women”, that is, a “sisterhood”, the sharing of one if it not women, novel struggleof a suffering, of being a victims of the patriarchate and the male gazeand to send a message, as well as the pleasure to economically support a woman’s artist. Furthermore, As a “sister I believe you” to “sister I read you”. Consequently, Women who read women therefore also become fighters. The straight white man who tries to fit into similar ranks fails. Jonathan Franzen tried to name a war – that is, that against cats that eat birds – being ridiculous.

One of the problems is that in the face of those who say “I read only women’s authors” respond with “I don’t care. I am only interested in that the book is written well”, it appears similar to “the right and the left are ideas that have been overcome” (which is a sentence on the right). Just as “I read only women” is seen as a if it not women, novel progressive phrase. while “I read only men men” (I don’t know anyone who has ever said it, if not with guilt) is a phrase that appears provocative. It is the classic paradox of the minority, which is obviously based on historical presuppositions. Those who have power. (or those who had it) feel in danger because they are losing this secular power, and clings to the shreds of what separates it from others and by those who characterize it.

But let’s go back – again – to the books. It is no coincidence that in response to the various publishing houses that publish by choice only women. women, is being born in England a publishing house that wants to publish only novelists men: Conduit Books, founded by the writer and critic Jude Cook, who is not a Naziskin or a conspiracy podcaster Novax or a fan of Andrew if it not women, novel Tate. Cook says he doesn’t want to have an antagonistic attitude with his publishing house. but he wants to “create a space so that male authors flourish”. In today’s editorial climate. he says, the male voice is perceived as “problematic”, and is often “neglected”, also due to an “occasionally toxic literary scene of the 80s and 90s”.

A corrective, therefore. Also because according to the World Economic Forum for a few years (2020) women publish more books than males. Joyce Carol Oates in 2022 wrote on Twitter: “A literary agent friend told me that he could not read the editors of the narrative debuts of young white male authors. regardless of how valid they are”. The market always bends. It is no coincidence that there is a successful page on Instagram as “Hot Dudes Reading”. as if the manzs they read on the subway were rarer than if it not women, novel an albino kangaroo.

If it not women. novel

The new canon

Sally Rooney, Ottessa Moshfegh, Elena Ferrante, Donna Tartt, Rachel Cusk, Annie Ernaux, Hanya Yanagihara, Deborah Levy, Yasmina Reza. But also Valérie Perrin and Muriel Barbery. And then the waves from Japan. Each author on the list. perhaps incomplete, has had a moment of fandom similar to that of a more or less lasting rock star, with explosions and canonizations, and different numbers of sale, but with attention that no male writer seems to have received in the same historical period with narrative. And apart from Ernaux and Levy and in part Cusk, these are hard and pure novels.

Il Guardian In the list of the best novels of the century he put Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (second. third place Marilynne Robinson and Svetlana Alexievich), the New York Times instead crowned The brilliant if it not women, novel friend (Second place Isabel Wilkerson, Third Mantel). And then the repechage. the revivals, and the posthumous celebrations, the ex post awards, with Goliarda Sapienza, and Natalia Ginzburg translated, etc. etc. And then the inevitable Book Clubs. also here with a great female focus – we think of the highly popular Miu Miu Literary Club (which allows penniless cultural journalists to feel in a great Gatsby scene for two hours) where only authors are invited. Let’s think of booktakers and Instagrammer, here too great female predominance. Apart from yellow – Joël Dicker. one of all – male explosion cases similar to the authors mentioned above there were only with non -fiction: Yuval Noah Harari, David Quarmen, Carlo Rovelli, and the precursor Jared Diamond.

Men come from Mars, women to be Venusit was the title of that bestseller by John Gray. In fact. if we look at the fiction if it not women, novel of our house, the great recent cases of extra-thin successful success concerns Mthat is, a biographer with episodes not as fictionalized as written as if it were a novel (there is a difference), all based on large historical research. Perhaps a trick, which worked, to bring both hemispheres closer, essay disguised as a novel, a personalization of people. And if you think of the Italian debate in publishing. the novelists are also less and less relegated to the genre The lions of Sicily (another case of which there is no male comparison), and also the witch more and more space. And if once there were the controversies around Saviano. now in the center, even after the farewell, Michela Murgia is unbeaten.

If it not women. novel

New men

It is interesting to note how Murgia, winning a prize like Campiello with a novel, Accabadora It then dedicated if it not women, novel itself, also by virtue of their faster and more political nature, to nonfiction – as if our accelerated times no longer had space for the novel as a weapon. Here there could be one of the reasons for the decline of the male novel: it is no longer. as powerful as it once was. Everything is too fast to allow the fiction to change the world. Among the other reasons for the feminization of the novel there could be of the healthy return beef. of course, or never dormant – we have gone from Feuilleton, from the liaries, from the Harmony to romancebut that is another category of readers. Or. as a young journalist wrote on Washington Post: men suck and therefore women are looking for “boyfriends” in the characters of the novels, which can be “perfect”, unlike the real ones. The “Book Boyfriend is respectful. listens to you, and if it not women, novel you don’t have to ask him to throw the garbage away”.

Il New York Times Last week he published a piece with the title: “Why did the. men who read the novels disappeared?”. It does not give a reply. but we talk about groups of males who try to put on a book club to return to the novel, and of publishers who say: the real enemy are video games and streaming. David J. Morris. professor of the University of Nevada, always on the pages of the Timesdaring a solution: there is an emotional, cultural and schooling regression of the American male. Concerned he wondered: «What will happen to literature. and therefore to society, if men are no longer involved in reading and writing? The fortunes of men and women are interconnected ».

To venture into a Marxist perspective. one might think that one if it not women, novel of the reasons for the end of the male domain on the literary novel and female supremacy is the fact that for some time it has been thought only in hyper-functional perspective. The new type man (certainly not the bubble of cultural journalists. people of publishing) was trained by the founders of start-up to sleep little and make every hour of the day to make their career jump (similar to the sugar given to the horses of soma so as not to make them flee from the stable). This new small bourgeoisie mainly male, which once read, no longer does it as their twentieth -century ancestors.

It is difficult to read. more and more – this say the data after ten years of use of smartphones – and entertainment is limited to Netflix, which, among other things, allows at the same time to scale or respond to if it not women, novel the emails or order on Deliveroo or buy on Amazon using another screen. And so if you really have to read. with the effort you do, that you read useful, functional books, for your career. Books where you learn something. stuff like The 7 rules to be successful, The power of now o How to treat others and get them friends (not knowing that all this can be found in Bel ami).