Let me be clear what I’m looking for (though if the thread gets any traction I’m sure it’ll get hijacked.
I’m looking for literature, not cinema, television, or drama; and for fairly modern works–say from 1950s on. Short stories or novels are fine. Stories that fit my needs will either have protagonists or viewpoint characters who are have a serious, pervasive, and stated dislike of women specifically, not humanity in general; or who treat women as being by definition unworthy of affection, sympathy, or concern.
In other words, the TV show House wouldn’t count, both because it’s not print and because House’s detestation of the humanity isn’t restricted to the penis-less. But the Old Testament story of the Levite who gave over his concubine to be gang-raped to death, then chided her as she lay dying for not immediately rising when he appeared, would qualify.
Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe has some of these attributes. There are very few women who rate his admiration. His general view is that women are either (1) dumb or (2) dangerous. He pulls it off with aplomb, though. Presented very well, especially with the women who break the mold he tries to put them in.
One of my favorite books has a misogynistic main character. Heart of the Country by Greg Matthews.
From PW:
“A half-white child is born to a dying Indian woman alone on the Kansas prairie in 1855. Adopted by a Saint Louis doctor, he grows up intelligent, willful, and perhaps cursed. He runs away at 16 and careens through several jobs and much money until trapped as a nursemaid to another precocious brat in a small Kansas town. Hunchbacked, distant, and of alien stock, Joe Cobden lives an unheroic life, but the small insanities he takes part in or meets in that small town are the meat of this tremendous novel. Matthews has taken a dust-blown soap opera and turned it into a character study of warped minds and withered souls, of human nature distilled to essences by isolation. The various people can be as grotesque in their actions as Cobden is in his physique, but nothing seems contrived here. A very compelling book, recommended for most libraries.”
I should have mentioned that I’m looking for books for our book club meetings in October. Such organizations being inherently pretentious, we won’t be reading Bond novels.
Yes, I know. It’s supposed to be a feminist novel. But from the movie (which I understand is pretty close to the book), all the women are portrayed as being stupid, unreliable, and just plain nuts, and it helps to discredit the feminist movement by portraying them as man-hating shrews. The only actually sympathetic female used to be a male.
It left a really bad taste in my mouth and the felling that John Irving really hates women.
I read your thread title and OP and thought, “I must be able to come up with something,” but after a couple days, nothing.
So I went through the notes I keep on the books I read, and found a few: Special Topics in Calamity Physics - the father seemed like a misogynist to me, but then, I never finished the book. Quantico Rules - is a spy novel and according to my notes the protagonist’s FBI boss is a misogynist, but I don’t remember anything about this book. Envy - by Sandra Brown. Again, I don’t remember it, but my notes say “strangely misogynistic for something written by a woman.”
I realize this isn’t much help, but if I think of more, I’ll be back.
There was some misogyny in The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I still remember a quote used in that book, something like “Men have friends, women have family, and animals have their own kind.” Sometimes I have to admit I kind of “get” that quote, or find myself thinking it about someone. *The Secret History * is a good book club book, too.
If you’re concerned that Random Walk is just like Block’s series mysteries, and thus not suitable for a book club, it’s not. It’s standalone and quite distinctive. It definitely left a lingering misogynistic aftertaste.
Philip Roth’s characters seem like massive misogynists in nearly every book I’ve read by him. I cannot help but think that he’s got a problem. He’s a great writer, but damn…
If you google “Philip Roth and Misogynist”, you’ll see that he leaves this impression on many people. It’s really too bad…the greatest writer of our time is a dick; at least on this subject.
There’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which I haven’t read; and Native Tongue, which I have, and which includes aliens. Native Tongue is available for reading on Google - if I got the link right.
I remember that quote from The Secret History. It’s not something originated by any character, but rather a Greek aphorism (the main characters are all Greek students); in context, the quote is part of an explanation of the odiousness of the murder victim.
