By now, most of the literary cosmos has either read for themselves or heard about Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul's comments in the Evening Standard that no woman writer is as good as he is. In his remarks, he claims that he can tell "within a paragraph or two" whether a piece of writing was composed by a woman, because females are sentimental, narrow, and "not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing."
Uh huh.
In the interest of not getting into a pissing contest with a skunk, I won't point out the obvious: that Naipaul is a notoriously misogynistic, racist, and abusive asshat, or that his comments give credence to the theory that one can be a Nobel Laureate and a complete wanker at the same time. Instead, let's have some fun.
In response to Naipaul, The Guardian has posted a quiz that asks readers to identify the gender of writers based on one-paragraph samples of their prose. I'm not going to tell you my score; it was abysmal. Which probably wouldn't surprise Mr. N. at all, since according to him, as a woman I have an imperceptive, overly emotional, and squishy intellect. You can't win for losing, can you?
Anyway, click on the link below to take the quiz. I hope you can do better than I did. Or maybe not.
V.S. Naipaul "Which Writer Has a Penis?" Quiz
Ugh. Three out of ten.
Posted by: Leslie McGrath | June 03, 2011 at 12:01 PM
The more I think about, the more I think a low score is a good thing.
Posted by: Laura Orem | June 03, 2011 at 01:08 PM
Leslie - Three out of ten for me too and Laura I agree. A low score is a good thing. It's just that we're so competitive that we hate to get a low score on anything.
Posted by: Stacey | June 03, 2011 at 01:49 PM
Thanks for the exercise, LO. I'm a sucker for this sort of thing. I took it twice without looking at the answers, scoring 4 the first time, 8 the second. But I am convinced that the exercise is flawed because of the medium's interference: you keep applying your test-taking intelligence to the task, assuming that -- as on SATS, GRES, and other standardized tests -- there are trick questions and that the ones that seem "obviously male" or "obviously female" are not as they seem. Of course I agree with Stacey about not liking low scores (except on cholesterol, blood pressure, and earned-run average). Wouldn't it be nice if people could make their speculations about sex and gender without being and sounding obnoxious, arrogant, angry, defensive or complacent? -- DL
Posted by: The Best American Poetry | June 03, 2011 at 06:37 PM
I agree, DL - it's hard to take seriously anything Naipaul says on the subject, since his egomania borders on the sociopathic. Actually, he's such a great big jerk that it is hard for me to take seriously anything he says about anything.
Posted by: Laura Orem | June 03, 2011 at 07:17 PM
To preface what could be a dangerous comment: I am not defending the words of an asshat.
But what I would like to say is that oftentimes, telling the difference between a female and a male narrative voice isn't so difficult. There's no misogynistic meaning in that, and I'm not judging a voice that is "better" than another. There is, however, often a major difference in style and tone.
And yes, yes, it varies from person to person. But I often find myself in the same situation - not so much with fiction - but in essays. Pick up Newsweek; you can tell within thirty words if the article is written by a man or a woman.
Posted by: D. O. | June 04, 2011 at 06:15 AM
D.O. - while I don't agree with your contention that a writer's gender is that easy to determine, I do think that what annoyed everyone - and what got my steam up - are Naipaul's contentions that no woman writer is "better than I am" and that women writers are sentimental and sloppy. The discussion vis-a-vis style is worth a look; Naipaul's raging egomania and misogyny are not.
Posted by: Laura Orem | June 04, 2011 at 08:20 AM
First, congratulations to Naipaul for saying something -- was he serious? -- that stirs the pot like this. But the topic is one I've often thought about and not only does it seem to me that women writers can be "as good as" Naipaul, but there is an argument that all artists (including writers) actually ARE women. This idea was articulated by none other than the otherwise very misogynistic Pablo Picasso as follows: "I am a woman. Every artist is a woman and should have a taste for other women." Since for some time now I've realized that I am a male lesbian, I could not agree more! Another male lesbian, Gustave Flaubert, was very on point about this when he stated, "I am Madame Bovary." He was a woman! Joyce was obviously a woman. Indeed, Naipaul himself is almost certainly a woman, although he may be struggling with it. He has also said he doesn't like music. What a character!
Posted by: mitch s. | June 04, 2011 at 07:26 PM
I took the test and got three of ten. Score sheet said, "What are you, a girl or something?" Yes!
Posted by: mitch s. | June 04, 2011 at 08:19 PM
Completely agree; well said.
Posted by: D. O. | June 06, 2011 at 01:15 AM
10 of 10. Don't see what the rest of you found so hard. Er, difficult.
Posted by: ted moribundy | June 12, 2011 at 04:53 AM