the book in question isn't really part of its genre.
It TRANSCENDS, dearie. All good genre fiction is transcendent. Hah.
What's funny is, I couldn't get into O'Brien very well because of [what I perceive as] guyish tendencies in the prose -- it felt like shopping in the tools section of Sears, and seemed very short on plot. (I imagine his first is also his weakest novel, but I haven't tried any of the others yet.) Whereas I liked the movie fine.
I'd actually call Cornwell a crap writer, despite my reading and enjoying the first few Sharpe novels. Because I also read more than the first few, and after a while it was like, Okay, he can't have triumphed at
all
the battles in Napoleonic Europe, or else he would be named Wellington, not Sharpe. (To say nothing of the Mary Sueism that crept in like a stalking cat.) Part of my definition of a good writer is knowing when to stop.
Paul Bettany is hot ?!?!??!?!
Oh, well. All the more Russell Crowe for me.
I'm pretty sure my favorite genres are thought to be male-dominated, although women are all over the shamus business(private eyes) in books and in life. In fact, while I was researching that Thing I Might Write someday, somebody wrote that women PI businesses are the fastest growing segment in the industry right now.(And I'm sure you don't care.)
I still have scarring from when my English Lit profs shot laser beams at me from their eyes on hearing that I didn't particularly care for Chaucer OR Conrad very much
See, I love Chaucer, but that's as much as a history major as it is for his writing; he was John of Gaunt's brother in law.
Conrad? Not so much. Really, really not so much.
I adore Shakespeare so very much. Portia's speech to Brutus about being his wife and sharing his secrets and burdens still speaks to me. Almost every day a quote will pop into my head for one reason or another.
However, I don't think you
must
like him. I hate hate hate Faulkner and Stienbeck. And I adore the more bizarre Tenessee Williams like Camino Real, while I find Streetcar and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, just really good.
Ok, now I gotta ask it....
Who else thinks "Madame Bovary" was a giant piece of crap and wanted to slap whatsherface around by page 4?
Heh. I had to drag DH kicking and screaming to
Master & Commander,
because to him if it has pretty men in pretty clothes doing adventurous things, it's a chick flick. Though he didn't make the same argument about PotC or LotR, so he's not entirely consistent. And I may be able to get him to see
King Arthur
with me, because Keira Knightley cancels out the chick flick factor.
I adore the more bizarre Tenessee Williams like Camino Real,
Heh. Suddenly, Last Summer. Homosexuality and cannbalism, baby. And a nun!
In most cases, I'm completely un-pinged by gender issues when I read. It's just a big old blind spot.
The one exception is that I do tend to subconsciously judge female POVs as "accurate" or not, which I don't do if the narrator is male. But I can't ever think of a time when I've given up on a book or movie because there were no women in it.
