Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Space Bar

I'm feeling flustrated, distracted, and out of sorts today, so I'm just going to post this quotation from an interview (via) with Emma Donoghue:
"I got into all this doing a PhD in 18th-century literature, when I became interested in revisionism," Donoghue explains. "Who was left out of history? Well, primarily, women. But look at the history of everyday life and you find that most people are left out: the women lead you to their equivalently obscure male family members, then you come to the freaks and cripples and slaves – not just downtrodden, but treated as not fully real people. If you're writing a novel about Henry VIII, you don't have to say what you've fictionalised, because it's easy to check; Henry VIII doesn't need you to speak up about your sources. But Mollie Sanger, my doughty cowgirl – if I don't put her on the record she's not on it at all. And I'm so grateful to her and all of them for the good stories."
That improves my mood all by itself.  So, should I wait for her new collection of stories to come in at the library, or should I just go ahead and buy a copy?