NP - Roth's Women

[jd]

They say that Saul Bellow had empty shells for his women characters as
well...  After reading Mr. Sammler's Planet and the opening bits of
Adventures of Augie March (maybe the first hundred or so pages, I
really need to finish that!) I can say that they're probably correct,
but Mr. Sammler's Planet is a jaw-droppingly amazing book IMO so I
don't think it really matters, as far as quality goes (I am male, for
the record).  In other words, it's a shame they couldn't portray women
as more full human beings, but the message, for me at least, isn't
very diluted by that fact.  I don't think it necessarily makes an
author misogynistic - I equate it more to the fact that without having
lived in the skin of a woman it's hard to know exactly how to flesh
one out accurately, so sometimes it gets glossed over.

I will say that Iris Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea is another amazing
book, written by a woman about a man, in which I feel women are
somewhat flat as well - they may be a major part of the book, but the
emphasis isn't on women, it's on how a man percieves women.  Maybe
women simply don't fit into the world view that Bellow, or Roth, were
attempting to portray.  I don't think they can really be blamed for
this, especially Bellow, since at the time the woman held a very
different role in society than the women of today do.