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Do I like that the journalist is using the author's success as justification for trying to cross into the personal life of a person performing a professional ta

Do I like that the journalist is using the author's success as justification for trying to cross into the personal life of a person performing a professional task? Not really. Do I think using a real name or pen name or any kind of pseudonym is a fool-proof, legally protected avenue to avoid being the responsible person for one's art? Not really. >Ferrante’s steadfast artistic choice to be anonymous can only be that: an artistic choice, made at the beginning of her writing career for private reasons that she deemed essential. The cost of anonymity is high; she told her publisher that she would do nothing to promote her books, and, indeed, they could well have sunk to the bottom of the literary river without a trace. That they succeeded, and reached the kind of audience they have, has happened, if anything, in spite of Ferrante’s anonymity, not because of it. Mostly I feel that because the novels were presented as fiction then researching the "fictitious" author using a pen name is against the spirit of art. Sharing art is very risky, emotionally speaking, and I feel the tradition of using pen names is worthwhile. It's not quite like journalism where there are mechanisms to protect sources who would be personally / professionally endangered by speaking out, but I think they're closer then we may believe. The article brings in quite a bit of gender-related discussion that could be appropriate, but kind of rubs me the wrong way. It somewhat - and not too forcefully - asserts that women have not had access to writing and publishing historically. As a studied male, I can surely assert that writing has traditionally been seen as a feminine and not masculine enterprise, much like teaching or nursing are seen in modern times. Women flat out effing dominate literature historically, so I don't really like inferences to the contrary. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating here but women in literature are plentiful and highly respected.

omginternets 10y ago
>As a studied male, I can surely assert that writing has traditionally been seen as a feminine and not masculine enterprise, much like teaching or nursing are seen in modern times. Women flat out effing dominate literature historically, so I don't really like inferences to the contrary Really? I got the exact opposite impression. In fact, didn't George Sand take on a masculine pseudonym precisely because the fine arts were male-dominated?
JadeNB 10y ago
> Do I think using a real name or pen name or any kind of pseudonym is a fool-proof, legally protected avenue to avoid being the responsible person for one's art? Not really. I don't think anyone has claimed this. People seem to be claiming only that Ferrante's moral, not legal, rights have been abrogated. > Women flat out effing dominate literature historically, so I don't really like inferences to the contrary. Wait, what? That women were encouraged to write I can certainly buy, but are you seriously asserting that their efforts are equally celebrated? I find it hard to believe that a list of, say, the 100 most popular authors would include a ratio of women to men in balance with the general population (and also doubt that any such imbalance could be explained by a difference of ability, rather than of recognition). EDIT: Jinx with omginternets (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12647957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12647957).
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
> Women flat out effing dominate literature historically > women in literature are ... highly respected Let's suppose for a moment that this is true. What would be a useful way of testing this? One thing that comes to mind is the Nobel Literature prize. I found a list of female winners: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/women.html https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/women.html and it appears that prior to Gordimer's winning in 1991 which opened some floodgates, women won in 1966, 1945, 1938, 1928, 1926, and 1909. That's six in 90 years.
- 6stringmerc 10y ago
  You're not going back far enough. I'm referencing back to the 1700s or so when there was education in the English language that was outside of the Church, because it did take a while after the Black Plague killed off many of the literate Latin scholars to allow the use of written language to trickle down to Royalty and others, but I've seen enough over the years to know women have earned much respect in literature. Naming a couple names seems futile because distilling "influence" or "respect" into a spreadsheet is fucking bullshit, but being able to say Jane Austen or Mary Shelley or Harper Lee in educated company reflects that there are giants in the field that are reflected upon for the merit of their works.
  - cafard 10y ago
    Respect is far from being domination.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
    Is that the same Jane Austen who, quoting wiki, "Like many women writers, she chose to publish anonymously" and the same Mary Shelley who published the first edition of Frankenstein anonymously. (You also left out the Brontës, all of whom used male pen names, and, as mentioned elsewhere, Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, aka George Sand). (Also which "Black Plague" are you referring to here? Your mention of "the 1700s" makes me think you mean the one of 1665, but that strikes me as extremely late in the 'there are lots of works written in English' game).
  - 10y ago

omginternets 10y ago

>As a studied male, I can surely assert that writing has traditionally been seen as a feminine and not masculine enterprise, much like teaching or nursing are seen in modern times. Women flat out effing dominate literature historically, so I don't really like inferences to the contrary Really? I got the exact opposite impression. In fact, didn't George Sand take on a masculine pseudonym precisely because the fine arts were male-dominated?

JadeNB 10y ago

> Do I think using a real name or pen name or any kind of pseudonym is a fool-proof, legally protected avenue to avoid being the responsible person for one's art? Not really. I don't think anyone has claimed this. People seem to be claiming only that Ferrante's moral, not legal, rights have been abrogated. > Women flat out effing dominate literature historically, so I don't really like inferences to the contrary. Wait, what? That women were encouraged to write I can certainly buy, but are you seriously asserting that their efforts are equally celebrated? I find it hard to believe that a list of, say, the 100 most popular authors would include a ratio of women to men in balance with the general population (and also doubt that any such imbalance could be explained by a difference of ability, rather than of recognition). EDIT: Jinx with omginternets (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12647957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12647957).

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago

> Women flat out effing dominate literature historically > women in literature are ... highly respected Let's suppose for a moment that this is true. What would be a useful way of testing this? One thing that comes to mind is the Nobel Literature prize. I found a list of female winners: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/women.html https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/women.html and it appears that prior to Gordimer's winning in 1991 which opened some floodgates, women won in 1966, 1945, 1938, 1928, 1926, and 1909. That's six in 90 years.

6stringmerc 10y ago
You're not going back far enough. I'm referencing back to the 1700s or so when there was education in the English language that was outside of the Church, because it did take a while after the Black Plague killed off many of the literate Latin scholars to allow the use of written language to trickle down to Royalty and others, but I've seen enough over the years to know women have earned much respect in literature. Naming a couple names seems futile because distilling "influence" or "respect" into a spreadsheet is fucking bullshit, but being able to say Jane Austen or Mary Shelley or Harper Lee in educated company reflects that there are giants in the field that are reflected upon for the merit of their works.
- cafard 10y ago
  Respect is far from being domination.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  Is that the same Jane Austen who, quoting wiki, "Like many women writers, she chose to publish anonymously" and the same Mary Shelley who published the first edition of Frankenstein anonymously. (You also left out the Brontës, all of whom used male pen names, and, as mentioned elsewhere, Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, aka George Sand). (Also which "Black Plague" are you referring to here? Your mention of "the 1700s" makes me think you mean the one of 1665, but that strikes me as extremely late in the 'there are lots of works written in English' game).
- 10y ago