Wednesday News: More controversy for Lena Dunham, exercising your speed reading skills, Elena Ferrante on writing and storytelling, and Cora Buhlert on romance in SFF

JanetPublishing Newsauthor interview / defamation / fitness band / Literary Criticism / publishing / Random-House / Romance / Science Fiction / smartwatch6 Comments

Publisher to Alter Lena Dunham Book After Rape Story Questioned, Attorney Says – More controversy surrounding Lena Dunham’s first book this time based on her allegation that she was raped while at Oberlin. Her description of the fellow student is apparently very similar to a former Oberlin student who shares the name of the student as represented in the book (Barry), and that student has been trying to get Dunham and Random House to “absolve” the man. Although it does not appear that Dunham has responded, Random House will be amending the book and has told the man’s lawyers that he is not the same Barry as the person in the book. Beyond the coincidence, one thing that’s interesting about this story is that the real life Barry claims he has no real interest in suing Dunham and Random House – he just wants his name cleared. If everything is as Barry and Random House asserts, this seems like a very reasonable compromise. Imagine that.

Random House, for example, told Minc and some reporters Monday that the person many in the press have presumed was Barry the rapist is, in fact, not the person Dunham describes.

“We are offering to pay the fees Mr. Minc has billed his client to date,” Random House said, in part, according to Minc.

“I don’t know if that will be good enough for my client. Ideally, we were looking for something from Miss Dunham,” Minc said. “We were also looking for an edit to be made to the book, and it’s my understanding that they are going to comply with that — to note that the name ‘Barry’ is a pseudonym. They have given me an indication that that is happening imminently.” –Hollywood Reporter

Notifications meet speed-reading on the Uno Noteband – In a sea of fitness bands and smartwatches, the Uno Noteband, which is currently fundraising on Indiegogo, may appeal to serious readers, especially if you’re looking to polish up your speed reading skills. Because the Noteband has a technology (Spritz) that allows the user to read up to 700 words a minute — one at a time — on its two-inch screen. Annoying or amazing? Of course, if you want to use it as a fitness tracker, it does that, too, and it only costs $59.

It’s also a capable fitness tracker that records your daily steps and activity levels and syncs the data with Apple Health and Google Fit. Sweetening the deal is a battery that can run for over five days on a single charge – a lot more than the upcoming Apple Watch or the already available Moto 360. –The Next Web

‘Writing Has Always Been a Great Struggle for Me’ – I was reminded of Liz Mc2’s excellent post on the craft of writing and its relationship to storytelling when I read this interview with Italian writer Elena Ferrante, who, despite her “cult following” in Italy and now in the US, has maintained anonymity. In fact, she indicates that it’s not really anonymity she has pursued, but “absence” as a public figure. She would rather her books represent her as an author. There are many, many interesting things about this interview, including the fact that Ferrante writes about women, saying “My women are strong, educated, self-aware and aware of their rights, just, but at the same time subject to unexpected breakdowns, to subservience of every kind, to mean feelings. I’ve also experienced this oscillation. I know it well, and that also affects the way I write.” And in regard to her perceived place in the Italian literary tradition, she makes this interesting distinction:

Q. Where do you see yourself in the Italian literary tradition?

A. I’m a storyteller. I’ve always been more interested in storytelling than in writing. Even today, Italy has a weak narrative tradition. Beautiful, magnificent, very carefully crafted pages abound, but not the flow of storytelling that despite its density manages to sweep you away. A bewitching example is Elsa Morante. I try to learn from her books, but I find them unsurpassable. –The New York Times

Of Hard SF and Messy Emotions – And speaking of writing by and about women, here’s a really good post from Cora Buhlert on the accusation that SFF with a romantic subplot isn’t “hard science fiction.” Buhlert talks about the myriad critiques of SFF that focuses on relationships, especially romantic relationships, noting that both men and women within the SFF community are responsible for the derogatory treatment of these stories as “soft,” as if that were a terrible thing. She speculates that this resistance is the manifestation of a “deep discomfort with emotion.” In part this goes back to the way in which we erroneously designate emotions as feminine, and the feminine as inferior.

And indeed accusations of “This isn’t SFF” often broil down to “This story contains more emotion than I’m comfortable with”, since for some reason no one ever accuses stories about characters standing around in an SFF landscape and endlessly philosophizing about something or other of being “not SFF”. But if there’s a story that deals with relationships and emotions, even if the context is clearly speculative, then suddenly that story is accused of being not speculative enough. Bonus points if the author and/or POV characters are something other than straight white cis- and heterosexual men. –Cora Buhlert

Janet

isn't sure if she's an average Romance reader, or even an average reader, but a reader she is, enjoying everything from literary fiction to philosophy to history to poetry. Historical Romance was her first love within the genre, but she's fickle and easily seduced by the promise of a good read. She approaches every book with the same hope: that she will be filled from the inside out with something awesome that she didnʼt know, didnʼt think about, or didnʼt feel until that moment. And she's always looking for the next mind-blowing read, so feel free to share any suggestions!

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