On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, Joel VanLaven wrote:
>
> Yes. I too have some problems with Tepper in that regard among others.
> I really apreciate some of her ideas and like her writing style sometimes
> as well.
me too, but not for the reasons you detail below.
I enjoyed reading _The Gate to Women's Country_. I found it well-crafted
and thought-provoking. The reaction I had was perhaps a knee-jerk
reaction against essentialism. The ending truths (which I won't go into
here because those who haven't read it should discover them within the
book not without) seemed strikingly different from the assumptions that
seem to underlie the other fem sf I've read. Namely, it seems most fem sf
assumes a social constructionist attitude towards gender roles (i.e. that
our society is responsible for the bulk of the differences between men and
women--we consciously and unconsciously educate the sexes differently).
Tepper, however, was so laden with natural differences, genetic
differences, b/n men and women that I had trouble buying her premise.
Perhaps I am spoiled by _The Female Man_ and _The Wanderground_ but I
found the "natures" of the women in the matriarchy less
believable...(would they really be pining for the men so much? and if
they would, wouldn't some be pro-active enough to "rectify" the situation
on a societal level?)
However, I did find it thought-provoking and an interesting switch in
ideology--and that's all I really want of any well-written novel.
Andrea
> However, she seems harsh and angry. She repeatedly comes back
> to religion as an all-encompassing evil. I'm not much of a supporter of
> most organized religions, but I feel like she takes it a bit too far. I
> had noticed mostly a distinct lack of homosexuality in her work. (though
> _Gibbon's_Decline_and_Fall_ has a little bit). I suppose we must read her
> writing with salt and wariness as we should everything.
>
> -- Joel VanLaven
>
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