Ambiance

Marilyn French

May 5, 2009 at 5:15 pm (By Miles Lascaux)

has died.

Five years ago I bookmarked this amusing article from the Grauniad, on a poll of women readers who chose the books that most influenced them and the righteous, feminist, socialist, left-wing Guardian’s attempt to fit the results into its worldview.  Amusing on many levels. Here’s their take on French:

The Women’s Room

Hugely influential when it was published in 1977, Marilyn French’s book now reads more as a fascinating period piece than as a timeless feminist tome. It depicts the joyless marriage between a middle-class woman and her bullying husband, and includes the infamous line “all men are rapists, they rape us with their eyes, their laws, their codes”.

-Miles Lascaux