The headline over a surprisingly long article in Saturday’s Guardian read:

The postwar literary landscape has been dominated by the male giants of
American letters. So where are all the women?

That was enough to get me going, which I suppose is the point of a headline. But as I read the article, written by Elaine Showalter, I realized she actually was arguing for the fact that many of America’s great novelists have been women, and they still are. From Harriet Beecher Stowe to Tony Morrison, women have always staked their claim in America’s literary world, usually using their own names and daring the mainly male-dominated publishing world to to ignore them. Their work has always been popular and often long-lasting — think Louisa May Alcott. Think of Harper Lee.

The problem seems to arise with the discussion of the “holy grail” of American fiction, the so-called “Great American Novel (GAN).” Showalter quotes John Walsh as saying that,
this is the big one…a single work of perfect fiction that would encapsulate the
heart of the US, interpret its history through the light of a single, outstanding
conciousness, unite the private lives of the characters with the public drama of its politics.”

Generally speaking, the literary establishment assumes that the GAN has and will lie firmly in the grasp of an American male writer. Moby Dick is the work most often cited. Others name The Great Gatsby. But for my money, the work that most closely fits Walsh’s definition is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. And as I already said, Lee was a woman.

None of this is surprising. Women do not necessarily write about subjects that their male counterparts in the “estabishment” regard as large or important, though many do. Woman often use depictions of family, homes and communities to express their vision of the world and the imperfect species that rules it. Many woman find more meaning in the details of human life than in the grand sweeping gestures. But again, not all. And I suppose it is this inexplicable need to generalize that has annoyed me the most. It’s not the article that angered me. It’s the fact that it needed to be written that I find infuriating.

Normally, I wouldn’t feel the need to respond. If I read something that upsets me, I tend to complain about it to whichever family member is nearby and leave it at that. But I felt I had to say something. And for obvious reasons. I’m a writer. I’m a woman. I’m an American. And the fact that I live my life at a distance from America gives me a different sense of perspective. So what do I think? I think there’s no such thing as “The Great American Novel,” nor should there be. The GAN is just one more act of arrogance, another way for writers to make themelves look important, or even tortured. Dividing writers between male and female camps ultimately does their work and their readers a disservice. It simplifies something that does not need simplification. It sows dissent irresponsibly. And it is shortsighted. Writers write what they need to express when they need to express it, and how. The subject matter they choose today is not necessarily what they will choose tomorrow. Anyone who knows the work of Joyce Carol Oates or Jane Smiley would understand that.

I, for one, do not want to be compared to another writer unless the comparison is about something having to do with writing, ie style or theme or genre. My country, my sex, my religion has nothing to do with it, except as factors that have contributed to who I am, not as a woman, nor as an American, but as a person. I believe it is important to my craft that I have a fairly good grasp of the tradition I work within, ie the tradition of literature written in the English language. I do believe in the old adage about standing on the shoulders of giants. But my ego is not so large, nor are the egos of the women I know who write, that it needs to thrust me towards a goal of becoming an historic landmark. Producing the best work that I can, and then actually getting it published, is a lofty enough goal for this writer, as well it should be for any writer.