Sunday, April 06, 2008

The Orange Prize Longlist




Cardine said...

I agree with you about the discrimination. It's not even reverse discrimination. It's good ole favoring of one group over another discrimination!

In reality I'm okay with people making a division among people based on various factors. It just seems so unnecessary in most cases.

Andi said...

I'm reading a title that made the long list (Sorry, by Gail Jones), and I have to say...not blowing my skirt up. Hmmphf. I hope some of the others are better.

Dewey said...

I don't agree at all, I'm afraid. I think that saying this is like when I hear (racist) people askng why there's a black history month when there's no white history month. The short answer is that all the rest of the months are white history months, or they have traditionally been. Literary prizes were long awarded only to men. We create prizes for women and focus months for black people as a way to attempt to bring attention to traditionally marginalized group. If men in the past had needed to disguise themselves as women in order to get their writing published, then and only then would I think that your friend's question would be a valid one.

Booklogged said...

Cardine, you're right, it's not reverse discrimination. Sometimes distinctions do need to be made. In literature we have Jewish, Christian, etc. Maybe we should have an award for the best literature written by men. I'd be fine if we had an award for women and another for men.

Andi, I've discovered award winning books don't always speak to most of us.

Dewey, I appreciate all that you said and I agree, but I don't think we can fix the past by punishing those in the present. That's like saying whites today should pay for the sins of our parents, or that Germany should be looked down on because of Hitler. It's true that there was horrible discrimination against women in the past, but do we fix that by discriminating against men today?

I love a good discussion and this certainly provides for one doesn't it.

Cardine said...

Yeah, I agree with you that we don't need to try to make up for mistakes of the past by making mistakes today.

Anonymous said...

This books promises to be a great read, especially due to the fact that there is an invention involved. Such books that talk of inventions or fantasy worlds totally impress and intrigue me, predominantly due to the brilliance of the auhtor's brain. Recently, I have been reading the famous fantasy novels of CS Lewis- The Chronicles of Narnia, and am highly impressed by the author's imagination as well as the few well-described war sequences in the stories and of course the magical land of Narnia itsellf! Since reading these and Lord of the Rings and of course Harry Potter, I've become an ardent fan of books that deal with new utopic worlds.
In fact, Disney and Walden are coming up with the latest Narnia movie-Prince Caspian, this May 16th. It promises to be awesome by the looks of the trailer. The very hot Ben Barnes is playing the character of Prince Caspian!! I am soo awaiting this release.