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My two cents on women in contemporary literature in Spanish?
I'm noticing a trend, as of lately. I'm not sure if it's because I've been mainly reading classics in English and contemporary literature in Spanish as of lately, but... women are sometimes better written by Spanish-speaking authors than by their English counterpart. I am not generalizing, okay? I can't say this ALWAYS happens, because it doesn't. But. In pretty much all of the books in Spanish I've been reading for the last, what, year and a half? Women are, if not the main characters, the main drive of the story, what makes it tick. It's not always good women, or even smart or compassionate or kick ass women, but mainly, strong, real human beings.
I have the feeling this has a lot to do with upbringing. Women are a weird dichotomy for men, here in Latin America. There's few places where there's more machismo than in here, and yet, we worship the Virgin Mary and assorted female saints more than we do God, and the worst insult possible is 'puta madre' or 'chinga tu madre' (according to locality) - you do not mess with the women in someone else's life, that's something you learn from birth, which is both degrading and uplifting and so very confusing, much like this place. That's why I've never really gotten the 'and your mother' jokes in the US - it IS serious business in here.
A year ago, an Italian singer bitched about how Mexican women were ugly and had moustaches (lol). There was an OUTRAGE. Women mostly snickered, but men? Men started demanding the dude would never again step on Mexican soil. There's a certain fascination with all things female in here, that steems from the total worshipping we have of mothers in here.
So I guess... it reflects in literature? I dunno. Again, it might just be a contemporary vs. classic thing, which is why I usually don't like classics. I mean, I read somewhere that Wuthering Heights had brought feminism to life 200 hundred years early and that there was no 16 year old girl that could resist Heathcliff, which made me see red. And then want to cry for the women that would let themselves be dragged around like all the females in WH were.
I'm not saying that this portrayal is exactly feminist, either. I just finished reading Boquitas Pintadas by Manuel Puig, which is basically about a group of women whose lives revolve around Juan Carlos, who loves no one but himself. It's set in the 30s, and all of these women are miserable and are trapped in loveless marriages and social expectances and the never ending routine and yet, they never stop walking with their head held high. It's a painful portrait of women when they don't have nothing to expect but a good marriage and a house to keep because society won't let them be anything else, and how they still make do of what they have, manage to achieve some happiness. It is a wonderful book, by the way, innovatively told.
And I'm reading La Novia Oscura by Laura Restrepo right now, which is about whores, and yet all of these girls are so outstanding and brave and strong in the own ways, especially with all they have to go through with. Like I said - good or bad or vain, etc, all of these characters are written so... lovingly, in a way.
Mmm, I'm not sure I'm explaining myself all that well. SO ANYWAY. Rec me good books in English that feature that feature women so wonderful it hurts? Because I know they're out there, but I sure haven't been reading them as of lately. Woe.
I have the feeling this has a lot to do with upbringing. Women are a weird dichotomy for men, here in Latin America. There's few places where there's more machismo than in here, and yet, we worship the Virgin Mary and assorted female saints more than we do God, and the worst insult possible is 'puta madre' or 'chinga tu madre' (according to locality) - you do not mess with the women in someone else's life, that's something you learn from birth, which is both degrading and uplifting and so very confusing, much like this place. That's why I've never really gotten the 'and your mother' jokes in the US - it IS serious business in here.
A year ago, an Italian singer bitched about how Mexican women were ugly and had moustaches (lol). There was an OUTRAGE. Women mostly snickered, but men? Men started demanding the dude would never again step on Mexican soil. There's a certain fascination with all things female in here, that steems from the total worshipping we have of mothers in here.
So I guess... it reflects in literature? I dunno. Again, it might just be a contemporary vs. classic thing, which is why I usually don't like classics. I mean, I read somewhere that Wuthering Heights had brought feminism to life 200 hundred years early and that there was no 16 year old girl that could resist Heathcliff, which made me see red. And then want to cry for the women that would let themselves be dragged around like all the females in WH were.
I'm not saying that this portrayal is exactly feminist, either. I just finished reading Boquitas Pintadas by Manuel Puig, which is basically about a group of women whose lives revolve around Juan Carlos, who loves no one but himself. It's set in the 30s, and all of these women are miserable and are trapped in loveless marriages and social expectances and the never ending routine and yet, they never stop walking with their head held high. It's a painful portrait of women when they don't have nothing to expect but a good marriage and a house to keep because society won't let them be anything else, and how they still make do of what they have, manage to achieve some happiness. It is a wonderful book, by the way, innovatively told.
And I'm reading La Novia Oscura by Laura Restrepo right now, which is about whores, and yet all of these girls are so outstanding and brave and strong in the own ways, especially with all they have to go through with. Like I said - good or bad or vain, etc, all of these characters are written so... lovingly, in a way.
Mmm, I'm not sure I'm explaining myself all that well. SO ANYWAY. Rec me good books in English that feature that feature women so wonderful it hurts? Because I know they're out there, but I sure haven't been reading them as of lately. Woe.
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I am surprised you got The Great Gatsby rec'ed in a previous comment - it's an extraordinary book, and I love it, but it's very bleak and depressing and Daisy is an empty ideal, more than a character - and a horribly weak and unpleasant woman in the end.
None of the women in WH come across as likeable, but I don't have a problem with that. I would argue, though, that seeing Heathcliff as your average mean bastard who beats up women is a rather unfair and simplistic way of reading the novel (not denying he's a nasty piece of work, mind you!). A lot of feminist theory argues - and quite convincingly, too - that him and Cathy are coded as adrogynous and that Heathcliff becomes Cathy's avenging angel when she is stripped off her power and married off to the more civilized (and no less monstruous) Lintons. So in a way Heathcliff becomes the embodiedment of her anger - WH is very gothic, claustrophobic and incestuous, but it's all about nature vs. culture in the end - and about the need, finally, to find a balance, as Catherine eventually goes full circle (the first Cathy is Catherine Earnshaw-Heathcliff-Linton, and the second is Catherine Linton-Heathcliff-Earnshaw), the property is restored to the rightful heir and Cathy - significantly, I thought - is fully accepting of Hareton as a potential mate, but teaches him to read and "civilises" him to a certain extent.
If you want interesting - troubling, complex, well-written female characters, these come to mind:
* Gwendolen from Daniel Deronda by George Eliot is a wonderful character, very charismatic, certainly more memorable than the title character of the novel. Bitchy, selfish but full of drive and very strong-willed. She makes one bad decision after and other and lives to regret it, but in the end grows into a better person for it. Maggie Tulliver in The Mill on the Floss (by the same author) is dreamy, sensitive, imaginative and lives in extremes - all barely restrained, passionate anger clashing with piteous self-denying morality. Both are madening, very frustrating, and very long novels, but they are both wonderful heroines.
* A somewhat unconventional - and contemporary! - rec: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. A Dickensian mystery full of thieves, conmen, reclusive heiresses and child thieves set in Victorian England... but written in the 21st century with a very Queer studies sensibility. Same author as Tipping the Velvet, so the lesbian theme's a given - this one is a good deal tamer, though, and it subverts some cliches of the genre quite deliciously. Both heroines (the heiress and her pickpocket-turned-maid-turned-conwoman) are wonderful.
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