You Should Read This: Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Cover for feminist utopian novel Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. — "There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver." - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Last week, I pointed to one of the foremothers of science fiction, Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle, and her work The Blazing World. Herland comes several centuries later (in fact, it’ll be exactly a century old in 2015) but it’s just as important a landmark in this often murky territory.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an American editor, writer, and lecturer whose short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” about a woman’s descent into madness, is often revisited in college literature classes. She was a single mother who supported herself by writing — no small accomplishment today, let alone at the time she was doing so, the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Herland is often treated as though it stands alone, but it’s actually the middle volume of a trilogy, preceded by Moving the Mountain in 1911 and followed by With Her in Ourland in 1916. The work was originally published as a serial in a magazine called The Forerunner that Gilman edited; it did not appear as a complete book until 1979, when Pantheon Books published it.

Herland is a utopian novel, in which three men, Vandyk (the narrator), Terry, and Jeff stumble across a civilization where the women reproduce asexually and there are no men. This turns out to lead not to a perfect civilization, but certainly one that seems more appealing than the one Gilman found herself in. Gilman uses the book as a device with which to explore constructed ideas of gender. It is an appealing society in many others; in others, it’s a bit cold and calculating. Girls who are overly rebellious or mouthy, for example, will not be allowed to reproduce.

One of the things that’s refreshing about the book is that it’s not written as though the lack of males is a deficit that warps society. Instead, it’s simply the way things are, and the Herlanders seem capable of getting along quite well without it.

Gilman was one of the important suffrage speakers of her time and a bit of a polymath. If you want to go further into her writing, I suggest a piece of nonfiction, her work on economics, Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution, which originally appeared in 1898.

You can find Herland online in its entirety at Project Gutenberg, along with much of Gilman’s other work.

#sfwapro

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Cover of The Odyssey by Homer. Accompanies review by speculative fiction writer Cat Rambo. — Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy.

I read The Odyssey in college. I’d been aware of it before then, in that way any bright teen reader is: one runs into its figures here and there or else the whole thing gets boiled down into a chapter in a book on Greek mythology. (I believe I’d also seen it referenced in Ray Harryhausen movies.)

I read it for a class, one of the brief ones squeezed in between semesters, a one-credit class called On the Road, which focused on (naturally enough) stories of the road, including Kerouac’s book.

What: The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus as he makes his way back through a series of dangerous encounters to his wife Penelope, who is facing off dangers of her own at home.

Who: Anyone who wants to be familiar with one of the fountains so many stories, in so many art forms, are drawn from should read this.

Why: Because it’s a classic. It’s good for you AND it’s a really good story.

When: Read it when you want to return to the bones of writing. Read it in conjunction with Robert Grave’s Homer’s Daughter, which posits a different author for it.

Where and how: Read it aloud, the way it’s meant to be heard. Read it in one of the many good translations that treat it like the poetry it is, such as Robert Fitzgerald’s. Or if you’re privileged enough to know ancient Greek, let it sing to you in that form.

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You Should Read This: About Writing by Samuel R. Delany

January 22, 2014

The cover of About Writing by Samuel R. Delany, a writing guide recommended by Cat Rambo. — Delany says: "A reasonable concern -- in many a worry; and in few a hope -- is whether a creative writing teacher wishes to teach her or his students to write the way he or she writes. Emphatically that is not my enterprise. But the agenda here is no less personal. The thrust of these pieces is to teach writers to produce works I would enjoy reading. "

I can’t think of a better book to begin with than a writing book I go back to over and over again, both for teaching and to apply to my own writing. Be aware that many of these essays are also contained in The Jewel-Hinged Jaw.

What: About Writing, by Samuel R. Delany, is a book of writing advice that includes seven essays, four letters, and five interviews. Two essays are ones I go back to over and over again, “Thickening the Plot,” and “Characters.”

Who: People who will enjoy this book include all manner of writers, as well as anyone interested in Delany’s own awesome fiction.

When: You should read this when you’re feeling uninspired about your own writing or if you want some assurance that “writing to discover” is as valid an approach as plotting things out thoroughly.

Why: Delany is one of the foremost SF writers of our time. His work speaks not just to those beginning to write, but those well along their path. If, like me, you love his fiction, you’ll find About Writing sheds new light on those works.

Where and how: Read it someplace quiet, where you have space to stare off into the distance, thinking about what Delany has said. Read it straight through or else do what I do and dip in at various places. No matter what angle your approach takes, it’ll be rewarding.

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