Define "Literary Men"
What a well-meant op ed completely missed
NB: Part Two of my post about how I choose what to read will appear next week; you can read Part One here.
I was on vacation last week, during which I swam in outdoor pools, an indoor pool, and the Atlantic Ocean; took walks in an Audubon preserve, a National Wildlife Refuge, and a rich-people’s-enclave preserve; saw rescue owls, great blue herons, diving mergansers, and even an armadillo; and read at least 75% less than usual (trust me, that’s a good thing, on occasion).
However, even though I was reading less than usual, I didn’t miss this op ed in The New York Times. Although the editors went with the clickiest of clickbait headlines, “The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone,” David J. Morris, a professor of creative writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, was arguing less for the old, tired model of Great White Male Bad-Boy Novelists than he was for the inclusion of young male readers, writers, and scholars in a literary world that seems (to him) lacking in ways for these young males to feel they too belong to the world of storytelling.
Dr. Morris’s points are salient: More and more women are reading and writing fiction than ever, which bears out in the proportion of women versus men in applications to the program where he teaches. We do need to continue to see men reading, writing, and represented as characters in fiction of all kinds. And I love that his final paragraph includes a quote from bell hooks noting that “any time a single male dares to transgress patriarchal boundaries. . . the lives of women, men and children are fundamentally changed for the better.” (Morris splits the quote by interjecting he believes literature enables men to transgress those boundaries.)
The piece seems strangely unfinished, and puts almost too much emphasis on words from hooks that the author herself might question. Yes, hooks rejects radical exclusionary feminism and believes that male participation in working towards equality matters. But I doubt hooks would say the any one man can do all of the work, or that the work of individuals of any gender matters most.
Still: Creative writing, especially fiction writing, remains an individual endeavor. That’s fine. So does reading! I have a lot to say about men reading fiction, which might make up another post here one of these days. But since Dr. Morris and I both teach creative writing, today I’m interested in his thoughts about the paucity of male writers and male MFA candidates.
Who does Morris include in the definition of “male writer?” It’s impossible to deduce from this piece. But I ask because I see so many young male writers out there whose work is superb — and while they are young and male-identified, they are not necessarily white or cis or straight. Brandon Taylor, Maurice Ruffin, Bryan Washington, Justin Torres, Tommy Orange, Guy Gunaratne, Patijm Statovici, Hisham Matar, Kaveh Akbar, Christopher Bollen, Gabino Iglesias, Derek Palacio, Tom Crewe, Colin Barrett, Morgan Talty, Andrew Lipstein, I am just rattling off names from my own head and I am sure I could list several dozen others with a tiny bit of searching.
And while I’d love to include several dozen more who might be a tiny bit older but producing really solid work, I also understand why Morris is using “young” in his piece. It’s no better to have All Artists Over 40 than it is to have Mostly Artists Under 30, but we do need to think about continuing to foster art, creativity, and literature. Let’s not forget that we need to do so for people of all genders, persuasions, and origins. Let’s encourage young men to read fiction, in the first place. Oops. I feel another Part Two post coming on, and I might need to finish last week’s Part Two before I start another one.
What are your thoughts on the David Morris op ed?
Here you are! Happy New Year!