Wednesday Hangovers

7 thoughts on “Wednesday Hangovers”

  1. I think this entire discussion is worthwhile and interesting, especially if you haven’t read the book and have no idea what you’re talking about.
    As it happens, the 7 year old sister, Kate, is the smartest, bravest, most
    heroic character in the entire novel. The brains of the outfit. Captured at sea by a German U-boat, Kate actually manages (with the help of Hobbes, a Jeeves-like character) to capture the submarine and turn it over to the Royal Navy and Winston Churchill himself.
    Far from “saving” her from the Germans, her brother is off in 1805, doing battle with a turncoat pirate who would ambush Admiral Lord Nelson at Trafalgar.
    There may be instance in the book where Nick saves his sister, but I’m
    damned if I can recall it. And by the way, if she needed saving and he was the one who did it, I frankly don’t see what all the fuss is about.
    But that’s just me.

  2. Thanks for dropping by, Ted. I think the fuss stems from the good, old-fashioned paternalistic attitudes displayed in the interview — more on Glenn Beck’s part than on yours, to be fair. Most of us are taking issue with his assertions about gender and certain behaviors in children’s books (and, by all indications, in life). To suggest that boys are emasculated by strong female characters, as he does, sells short their capacity as readers and as human beings. He certainly seems to be advocating for a certain kind of regressive book for boys, and it’s too bad if your book is being unfairly treated by association. Regardless, I didn’t hear any argument about the accuracy of his points during the interview.

  3. Fair enough. But if you knew how tough it was for fiction writers
    to get ANY airtime on national television, you would understand
    that I didn’t want to use my three minutes arguing with the host.

  4. Well, I do know, since I’m pretty informed about this kind of thing, Ted. And I’m not surprised you didn’t argue with him about it. I understand why you wouldn’t.
    But it doesn’t leave you with much room to criticize a discussion that has dealt largely with the interview and the impression it leaves — which for many of us was overwhelmingly negative.

  5. You’ve perfectly explained my reasons for writing the post at Guys Lit Wire, Gwenda. I never mentioned the book at all, other than to explain why Ted and Glenn were talking in the first place. The problem is the interview, and what they discussed. If Ted didn’t agree I wish he had said something, but that was, as he admits, his choice.

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