Books and Bias: Rediscovering the writing and ideologies in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels by Paula Marantz Cohen
Soggetto topico originale: Books and Bias Rediscovering the writing and ideologies in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels by Paula Marantz Cohen
ConversazioniThe Black Orchid (A Nero Wolfe Group)
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2MrsLee
>1 Crypto-Willobie: What do you think that author's point was? Are they saying we shouldn't be reading books of the past that offend our modern sensibilities in any way? If so, then we need to start burning a lot of books.
Or are they saying to read them, learn of the past through them and hopefully move on from the offensive parts of the past?
Or are they saying to read them, learn of the past through them and hopefully move on from the offensive parts of the past?
3Crypto-Willobie
Well, she's not saying don't read them or burn them.
I guess she's saying Be Aware.
I guess she's saying Be Aware.
4MrsLee
Yes, that's how I read it, also. I suppose I have a little trouble with this somewhat new idea (or is it very old?) that books lose their relevance and importance because when they were written they reflected the attitudes of the time they were written in and not the future.
I find pleasure in knowing that "We've come a long way, baby." Or motivation in reading and knowing there is more work to do on this road to civilization when I read books from the past. I worry about a generation of students who are too tender to read the past and learn from it. I also worry about folks who cannot see that people are complicated and that a very good person can have some very bad habits/thoughts. I don't like the idea of crossing someone off the list because they don't think exactly like me. When I come across someone who thinks differently, I examine the situation. What led to it? Why do I disagree? How can we move forward? I suppose the phrase, "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" comes to mind.
I find pleasure in knowing that "We've come a long way, baby." Or motivation in reading and knowing there is more work to do on this road to civilization when I read books from the past. I worry about a generation of students who are too tender to read the past and learn from it. I also worry about folks who cannot see that people are complicated and that a very good person can have some very bad habits/thoughts. I don't like the idea of crossing someone off the list because they don't think exactly like me. When I come across someone who thinks differently, I examine the situation. What led to it? Why do I disagree? How can we move forward? I suppose the phrase, "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" comes to mind.
5prosfilaes
>4 MrsLee: Rex Stout is not part of the dead past yet. If we want to read books from the past, let's go ahead and read books from the past; find out what the Ancient Egyptians thought, for example. But this almost always seems to come up with the same group of authors, the popular white, usually male, Anglo authors of living memory. It feels more like "how dare you judge what I like" and not "we should read and learn from the past".
Do you want people to read Rex Stout for fun? Some people will; some people won't, and some people who might otherwise will stop at stuff like this. That's their choice.
You want people to read the past and learn from it? That's exactly what they're doing; they're reading the texts and thinking about them, thinking about how things have changed.
Why do we read about Nero Wolfe instead of Simon Iff or Tarl Cabot of Gor or Easy Rawlins or Inspector Imanishi? Might it have something to do with the sensibilities of book-buying American culture of the past? Is that not worth thinking about?
Do you want people to read Rex Stout for fun? Some people will; some people won't, and some people who might otherwise will stop at stuff like this. That's their choice.
You want people to read the past and learn from it? That's exactly what they're doing; they're reading the texts and thinking about them, thinking about how things have changed.
Why do we read about Nero Wolfe instead of Simon Iff or Tarl Cabot of Gor or Easy Rawlins or Inspector Imanishi? Might it have something to do with the sensibilities of book-buying American culture of the past? Is that not worth thinking about?
6MrsLee
>5 prosfilaes: I'm sorry if somehow my post sounded as if I was attacking anyone, or saying, "How dare you judge what I like." That isn't what I meant at all. Obviously people will disagree on what they like or don't like in a novel. I too have things which will make me avoid a series, for instance the James Bond and Clive Cussler novels. I don't enjoy reading about the way their protagonists use women, and I have certainly set aside nonfictions from the 1800s and early part of this century because of their offensive treatment of other cultures/environments. I have noted these things in my reviews as well. What provoked the original response from me is that the overall novel being discussed Too Many Cooks, has some excellent dialogs on why racism is unacceptable, and the negative comments from other characters highlight the importance of those dialogs. So to consider the book unsuitable for college age students to read and discuss appalls me. College age students are old enough to understand that this world isn't a lovely place for everyone, and to dig into something like this seems to me what college is all about. Not shielding students from the ugly. Stout was rather ground-breaking for the discussions in this book at the time it was written. I think it's important to discuss how an author can promote better human relations and understanding in a book intended for pleasure reading without seeming like a preacher on a soapbox.
As to reading ancient writings, I do the best I can but not being a scholar who understands the ancient languages, I have had to resort to translations by mostly dead white guys. I can only hope they were doing their best to be as accurate as possible.
I'm not sure I understand the purport of your last paragraph. Are you saying no one questions those writers because of their ethnicity? Or are you saying no one buys their works because publishers do not make them easily available? Or perhaps that, for those readers who read mostly secondhand books, those novels are not easily available because people one or two generations ago were not buying them?
As to reading ancient writings, I do the best I can but not being a scholar who understands the ancient languages, I have had to resort to translations by mostly dead white guys. I can only hope they were doing their best to be as accurate as possible.
I'm not sure I understand the purport of your last paragraph. Are you saying no one questions those writers because of their ethnicity? Or are you saying no one buys their works because publishers do not make them easily available? Or perhaps that, for those readers who read mostly secondhand books, those novels are not easily available because people one or two generations ago were not buying them?
7prosfilaes
>6 MrsLee: saying, "How dare you judge what I like."
As I said, your complaint is part of a pattern. I was having a similar discussion on the Conan topic, and they're both very popular authors from the early 20th century. I've also seen similar things about Tolkien. They're always about popular authors, not literary ones. And the comments combine aspects of "why don't they teach these in schools" with "they shouldn't criticize these authors for being people of their time" (without acknowledging that it's not so much people of their time, but of their race, class and gender, and that that's what academia does, analyze and dissect.) Stout was not groundbreaking; black authors had said that over and over, since at least Frederick Douglass.
So to consider the book unsuitable for college age students to read and discuss appalls me.
There's only so much time to read, especially in the limited bounds of a college course. Is this work worth the time and make the point the teacher needs to make? It's certainly not a work that has to be taken up because for better or worse, the students will be expected to understand, like Moby Dick.
As to reading ancient writings, I do the best I can but not being a scholar who understands the ancient languages, I have had to resort to translations by mostly dead white guys.
That's sarcasm. If I take it literally, the major translator of the Ancient Egyptians, as far as I can tell, is Miriam Lichtheim, a Jewish woman Wikipedia describes as "a Turkish-born American-Israeli Egyptologist". It's trivial to find female translators for much ancient literature, and especially once we leave the Greco-Roman field, non-white translators. And new translations by living translators of all races and genders are being done constantly.
I'm not sure I understand the purport of your last paragraph.
For one, there are 47 Nero Wolfe books. Fer de Lance is not considered one of the greatest, even by Rex Stout fans. Yet Rex Stout got to spend his time writing 46 more books in the series, because he was tuned into the book-buying American culture. "Easy Rawlins" was a poor choice, much more modern than I thought but it's hard to find any black detective literature from the 1930s, with Chester Himes pretty much being the only example from the 1940s, on a quick search. Seicho Matsumoto got to write 31 novels, as he was tuned into the Japanese book-buying culture. There's four available in English. (And before you mention translation, let me point out that Georges Simenon had dozens of volumes translated into English.) The constraints of the past continue to bind the present.
As I said, your complaint is part of a pattern. I was having a similar discussion on the Conan topic, and they're both very popular authors from the early 20th century. I've also seen similar things about Tolkien. They're always about popular authors, not literary ones. And the comments combine aspects of "why don't they teach these in schools" with "they shouldn't criticize these authors for being people of their time" (without acknowledging that it's not so much people of their time, but of their race, class and gender, and that that's what academia does, analyze and dissect.) Stout was not groundbreaking; black authors had said that over and over, since at least Frederick Douglass.
So to consider the book unsuitable for college age students to read and discuss appalls me.
There's only so much time to read, especially in the limited bounds of a college course. Is this work worth the time and make the point the teacher needs to make? It's certainly not a work that has to be taken up because for better or worse, the students will be expected to understand, like Moby Dick.
As to reading ancient writings, I do the best I can but not being a scholar who understands the ancient languages, I have had to resort to translations by mostly dead white guys.
That's sarcasm. If I take it literally, the major translator of the Ancient Egyptians, as far as I can tell, is Miriam Lichtheim, a Jewish woman Wikipedia describes as "a Turkish-born American-Israeli Egyptologist". It's trivial to find female translators for much ancient literature, and especially once we leave the Greco-Roman field, non-white translators. And new translations by living translators of all races and genders are being done constantly.
I'm not sure I understand the purport of your last paragraph.
For one, there are 47 Nero Wolfe books. Fer de Lance is not considered one of the greatest, even by Rex Stout fans. Yet Rex Stout got to spend his time writing 46 more books in the series, because he was tuned into the book-buying American culture. "Easy Rawlins" was a poor choice, much more modern than I thought but it's hard to find any black detective literature from the 1930s, with Chester Himes pretty much being the only example from the 1940s, on a quick search. Seicho Matsumoto got to write 31 novels, as he was tuned into the Japanese book-buying culture. There's four available in English. (And before you mention translation, let me point out that Georges Simenon had dozens of volumes translated into English.) The constraints of the past continue to bind the present.
