another list

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Diana York Blaine writes:

> A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor
> Beloved, Toni Morrison
> The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
> Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs
> Middlemarch, George Eliot
> Villette, Charlotte Bronte
> Blood and Guts in High School, Kathy Acker
> Ariel, Sylvia Plath
> Black Sun, Julia Kristeva
> Kindred, Octavia Butler

Not too sure I agree with this list. As an alternative I'll follow
Krafft's lead with the following (in no particular order):

  Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
  Middlemarch, George Eliot
  The Waves, Virginia Woolf
  The Passion, Jeannette Winterson
  The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter
  Collected Poems and Fragments, Sappho
  Collected Poems, Emily Dickinson
  Goblin Market, Christina Rosetti
  Wilderness Tips, Margaret Atwood
  Possession, A S Byatt

Ok, the last few are maybe a bit dubious but the first five at least
are staggeringly brilliant and judging by the tiny fragments of Greek
I have been able to catch a glimpse of Sappho too is truly awesome.

Not that this is meant to represent any rank preference or such. Just
a list of female writers I hold very dear and thought others might
like to consider reading/rereading.

For those who have not already seen it on rec.arts.books I append a
list of five of my favourite books, or rather four fictional books
occuring in four of my favourite works and one real book listed under
a false name - can anyone produce the real names?


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.

----- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< ---

1. Things That Can Happen In European Politics
   Ernest Pudding (Brig), private posthumous publication

   A marvellously lucid analysis of the changing political situation
   in the pre-war years. The author has been criticised for his easy
   acquiescence to the rise of German militarism but one must judge
   the work in the context of depression Britain.

2. A Book of Words
   Saxo Grammaticus, 1456, reprinted El Senor Press, 1981

   The famous Danish grammarian has provided a fascinating insight
   into the origins and workings not just of Teutonic linguistics
   but of language in general. A fine delineation of the boundaries
   of sense and meaning which is applicable to modern day linguistic
   study as any work of the Freges, Chomskys, Winograds etc. of our
   modern age.

3. Namur: Reconstruction of a Key Moment in the Famous Seige - with
   detailed maps of the fortifications, earthworks, disposition of
   the artillery pieces and troops; including diverse engraved plates
   and figures by the author)
   Toby Shandy, Trismegistus & Sons 1765, reprinted York & Co, 1979

   A personal testament reflecting on the loss of manliness which so
   corroded the British character in the wake of this important battle.
   Mr Shandy's obsessive cataloguing of the details of the battle itself
   is unparalleled in the history of military encounter.

4. The Sweets of Sin
   Martha Clifford, Shakespeare & Co 1922, reprinted Nausicaa Press 1992

   It is easy to dismiss this novel as a `period pot-boiler' but,
   as the great critic Paul de Koch says in his seminal and penetrating
   work on the late 19th century romance, Mrs Clifford's artistry
   recreates the romance and passion which are part and parcel of the
   innocence which attaches to a bygone era. What looks now like an storm
   in a teacup was in `that other world' a stirring tale of near-adulterous
   passion.

5. F For Fake
   Gwyon Wyatt, JR Dunnett & Co 1956

   This is the unput-downable story of the famous master faker who
   shocked the art world of the 1950s when he revealed the systematic
   defrauding of the market with his masterful creations in the style
   of Van der Goes, Van Eyck etc. Not only does it detail the techniques
   which fooled the so-called art experts (e.g. the use of linseed oil
   and fresh egg-white as a base for his egg-tempera) and catalogue some
   of the blunders they failed to spot (Prussian Blue in a mediaeval
   painting!) but it also uncovers the machinations of the various art
   world insiders who helped him distribute his modern masterpieces.