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There is a school of thought that likes to differentiate between female writing and male writing. Male writing is curt, it is short sentences, it is Hemingway grunts, it is sudden violence, it is deathly afraid of adjectives.
In contrast, according to this view, female writing is of the senses, it is inner thoughts and feelings, it is family and relationships and talk, it is magic and mysticism and occasional fluffy bunnies.
On first glance, one might be tempted to slap the “female” label on Raja Alem and Tom McDonough’s collaborative effort, My Thousand & One Nights: A Novel of Mecca. One should be careful, though. This novel might slap back.
A few things you need to know about living in L’Amour country:
• If you meet a quiet, rugged kind of a fella with an almost superhuman knowledge of tracking, botany, and the lawful ways of the West, don’t challenge him in a gunfight. You’ll lose.
• Speaking of gunfights, you’re likely to run into one. Most likely a blazing one. And 99% of the time, you should expect to see a man clutch his chest, arm, or stomach and then fall awkwardly face first, backward or sideways into the mud, dust or barroom floor.
• Keep an eye out for smooth-talking, rich, and handsome men. They’re not to be trusted and they never end tidily.
• But a trim girl with smiling eyes who knows how to ride a horse, be she a reformed prostitute or a rancher’s daughter…well, expect to see her settling down any day now.
Pity the modern novel – it’s been through hell in the past century. It’s been sliced (whaddup Ms. Woolf), diced (cheers Faulkner) and pureed (I’m talking to you Pynchon). It’s been turned on its head and turned inside out, pared down to a bare minimum (hello Didion) or engorged with detail.
It’s also been the enemy and friend of writers working outside “western” traditions – a framework that only sometimes allows for myth, orality, and multidimensional culture. Highly convenient and easy to move around in, sure, but so’s a quickimart.
Ah, Casanova. Men want to be him, and women want to be with him. Or is it the other way around? He’s Romeo with cojones, Bond without the Beretta, a man more sinned with than sinning. In the annals of sexual conquest, there has seldom been a more entertaining and knowing chronicler. Casanova, according to Casanova, was a legend.
But who was the real Casanova? Actually, let me rephrase. Was there a real Casanova? He wore many masks, but when he went home after his energetic performances did he ever bother to take them off?
