REading and Re-reading Joanna Russ

[bibliogramma]

I recently acquired a copy of Jeanne Cortiel’s critical analysis of Joanna’ Russ’ fiction, Demand My Writing and in preparation for reading it, I decided to go back and reread some of Russ’ books that I hadn’t read for a long time, and to read some newer works that I had never read. My partner, who believes, and not without cause, that Russ is one of the most important writers of our time and certainly one of his greatest favourites of all time, has everything she’s ever written, so this was not a difficult task to arrange.

What follows is not a series of reviews so much as some casual notes about what I though on reading/rereading these books.

On Strike Against God

This was new to me. It is not SF (any more than , say, The Women’s Room is, although the argument could certainly be made that such books are a particular form of the alien contact novel), but rather a contemporary novel, in Russ’s unmistakable style, about a woman who has begun to rebel against the stifling masculine privilege and oppressive hetero-normativity she finds around her. It contains many of the same themes as The Female Man, and that’s a good thing.

The Hidden Side of the Moon

A collection of short stories- any of them dealing with issues of personal identity and family relationships from women’s perspectives, including such masterpieces as “The Little Dirty Girl,” “Sword Blades and Poppy Seed,” “The View from this Window,” and others. Many of these stories are more properly classed as speculative or experimental fiction that science fiction, but who cares?

Extra (Ordinary) People

Five linked stories (sometimes rather loosely linked, at that), beginning with the absolutely astonishing story “Souls.” Worth reading for that alone.

The Female Man

One of the classic feminist SF texts, I’m just going to assume you have all read it, and if you haven’t, then what on earth are you doing reading this when you could be reading it instead? It loses none of its force upon re-reading. And if anyone thinks that things are so much better now than they were when Russ wrote this… no, they’re just differently framed and packaged, that’s all. You still don’t have to walk very far to find a man who can look at a room full of women and ask where all the people are.

The Adventures of Alyx

Alyx’ career was really rather interesting, when you come to think about it. Starting out as a woman adventurer in a historical/fantasy world not dissimilar to, say, the world that Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser or other heroes of that sort lived in, she ends up being kidnapped into a science fictional future to save the asses of a bunch of future humans with minimal survival skills and becomes an agent of the temporal police. I’ve got quite a soft spot in my heart for Alyx. This collection has all the Alyx stories, including the short novel/novella Picnic on Paradise.

The Zanzibar Cat

More great goodness in small packages, including the one that really did change everything, at least for women in SF communities, “When It Changed.”

In closing, may I suggest that if you haven’t done so lately, go out and read some Joanna Russ. It will do you good. Really.

Comments

[sauscony.livejournal.com]

I have yet to read anything by Russ, although I have The Zanzibar Cat and recently picked up a stand-alone copy of Picnic on Paradise. I also put her book How to Suppress Women's Writing on my wish list.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Russ' fiction is not always easy to read, but she's always rewarding. Picnic on Paradise is probably a good novel to begin with, because it's stylistically less experimental than some others.

And her critical writing on feminist issues is on par with the best feminist analysis has to offer. Brilliant stuff.

[devilwrites.livejournal.com]

She's someone else I need to read. I've read one critical text of her's, and that's it. I've got to get cracking...

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

In some ways, I envy people who haven't yet read Russ, because there is such a wonderful discovery ahead of them...

I think her writing is very important for younger feminists to read, because she writes from a time when sexism was so much more blatant. I find that it's instructive for younger feminists to realise that no, she's not exaggerating to make a point, the kinds of things she depicts really did happen just that way... and then a few minutes later, one realises that while it's often more subtly disguised, at the core, there really hasn't been as much change as one originally thinks there has been.

[devilwrites.livejournal.com]

Amen to that. While I'm a younger feminist, but I know that there isn't exaggeration, especially since I've seen the reverse quite a bit, when I was in college. I went to an all-women's school, and there was definitely some radical theories among my peers.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

It's a very strange sort of thing, being a feminist who has lived through the last 40-odd years of social change.

So much has actually changed on the surface. When I was a girl, very few married women worked, and very few women working in anything other than the traditional kinds of women's jobs - nurse, teacher, secretary, shop clerk, domestic worker, or low-paid factory worker. Within my lifetime, women have gained independant property rights, legal access to birth control and abortion, increased access to education and employment opportunities... but the overall mindset concerning men and women, their roles and relations, has only made superficial progress.

So much done, so very much more to do.