A mailshot from ace charity Womankind asks supporters to hold a fundraising book group with inspiring stories about women to celebrate International Women’s Day.
Once you start to think about it, there are almost too many options, but I’d plump for Roxane Cross, the lyric soprano whose beautiful voice holds it all together for both kidnappers and captives in Ann Patchett’s Orange prize-winning novel, Bel Canto.
Once you start to think about it, there are almost too many options, but I’d plump for Roxane Cross, the lyric soprano whose beautiful voice holds it all together for both kidnappers and captives in Ann Patchett’s Orange prize-winning novel, Bel Canto.
I wasn’t planning to post until my mother’s day alternative annethology on Sunday, but the mailshot made me question the heroines in my own fiction. And got me feeling a little guilty. It’s not that I make them sit at home knitting their husbands’ socks (and no shame in that if it’s well-written) but they aren’t dashing into burning buildings to rescue sleeping babes from their beds. To be fair, my male characters aren’t particularly heroic either. That’s just not how I write. But I’m a feminist. Shouldn't my heroines reflect that position?
I don’t believe that my characters have to be likeable or my stories consistent with my value system but, today of all days, I wish I could offer you some inspiring women. But in fiction, as in life, people have to manage as best they can with what they’re given. In some contexts, mere survival can be heroic.
So here’s Elsa, Washing Dishes at the Old People’s Luncheon Club,
taking one day at a time, finding solace in the ordinary, until someone needs her to be inspiring.
For the musical accompaniment I’ve chosen Helen Reddy, not the rousing I Am Woman, but Think I’ll Write a Song for a complementary and more typical take on domesticity for women. (I don’t know why people knock the domestic in literature, there are so many different nuances, and a really dark side, in my opinion, but that’s for another post.)
What do you think? Who are your heroines in literature? Does our writing ever have to reflect our values in real life? Do tell!
So here’s Elsa, Washing Dishes at the Old People’s Luncheon Club,
taking one day at a time, finding solace in the ordinary, until someone needs her to be inspiring.
For the musical accompaniment I’ve chosen Helen Reddy, not the rousing I Am Woman, but Think I’ll Write a Song for a complementary and more typical take on domesticity for women. (I don’t know why people knock the domestic in literature, there are so many different nuances, and a really dark side, in my opinion, but that’s for another post.)
What do you think? Who are your heroines in literature? Does our writing ever have to reflect our values in real life? Do tell!
RSS Feed
