What was Canadian author David Gilmour thinking?
In a recent with interview Hazlitt (which The National Post referred to in a Sept 25 article) Gilmour dismisses women authors, particularly Chinese ones, and makes the bold proclamation that the real writers are men, "mens' men".
Gilmour says that "I say I don’t love women writers enough to teach them," that his forte is only "very serious heterosexual guys. Elmore Leonard. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Real guy guys." Gilmour also said that he "would teach only the people that I truly, truly love. And, unfortunately, none of those happen to be Chinese, or women. Um. Except for Virginia Woolf."
I find it truly astonishing that a prominent writer would say any of the above things in a public forum or, even worse, believe such statements. Apology or not, someone please keep Mr. Gilmour away from microphones!
What Gilmour said was jaw-droppingly sexist, true, but he didn't say anything about Chinese or gay *students* - he said he teaches the authors he loves, "and none of them happen to be Chinese, or women. Except Virgina Woolf."
ReplyDeleteThe whole transcript is here (and damning): http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/gilmour-transcript
Thank you for the comment, Kate (and Mike).
ReplyDeleteYou're correct. Good game. It's inaccurate to say Gilmour slam Chinese students per se. Gilmour, in fact, cited Chinese writers, it seems, as unworthy. When I read the truncated National Post article, this wasn't as clear.
I also agree with your other point - he didn't say anything about gay students. The National Post article may have also garbled that. Or perhaps I did. However, he did say the following:
"What I’m good at is guys. . . Yeah, very serious heterosexual guys. Elmore Leonard. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Real guy guys. That’s a very good observation. Henry Miller. Uh. Philip Roth."
And I've updated my blog post to reflect the longer transcript.