“I’m not interested in teaching books by women. Virginia Woolf is the only writer that interests me as a woman writer, so I do teach one of her short stories. But once again, when I was given this job I said I would only teach the people that I truly, truly love. Unfortunately, none of those happen to be Chinese, or women. Except for Virginia Woolf.”
– David Gilmour, novelist and University of Toronto Professor, to Emily M. Keeler of Hazlitt
Virginia Woolf was a famous Chinese novelist. She was born in China, as is so popular among the Chinese, where she was born. She came in third during the Boxer Uprising, after which she wrote The Good Earth, which was about China, while being a woman novelist. She was born there and she lived there. She wrote all kinds of things about China, mostly in Chinese but also some in English too, I think probably, while also being a woman and all that that entails. Virginia Woolf was a hundred feet tall and menstruated knives, which was fairly unusual for Chinese women of her day.
Virginia Madsen is not related to Virginia Woolf or Michael Madsen. Isn’t that funny? You would think at least one of them were related to each other, but they aren’t.
Virginia Woolf was a Chinese novelist but she was not a wolf; nor was she from Virginia. This is a common mistake. She was eaten by wolves in 1942, shortly after finishing The Joy Luck Club, which she also wrote. Those wolves were not from Virginia either. There’s a Chinese guy — I think he’s Chinese — whose office is right down the hall from mine. I don’t know his name. I think maybe it’s Stan. I’m pretty sure he’s Chinese, but I don’t know if he’s ever written a book. I think you’re only allowed to write one novel per family over there. China: a land of contrasts and Virginia Woolf.
Have you ever been to China? They just love Virginia Woolf over there. Can’t get enough of Virginia Woolf. They even made a movie about it. Everybody Loves Virginia Woolf. Liz Taylor was in it. I don’t teach about it, though. I was never a big Liz Taylor fan, and you know what they say: Only teach what you love, even if it’s not Chinese. Some people, they only teach women Chinese novelists, but not me. I’m not afraid to go up against Big Chinese Women Novelists. They don’t scare me. I’m not afraid of Virginia Woolf. You ever been to China? You’re kinda quiet. You Chinese? It’s not offensive, it’s just a question. Have you ever written a novel?
China is just full of women, some of whom have been known to write books, although I can’t think of any more just now. Have you ever tried egg drop soup? It’s pretty good. I’m a man. That song “Meet Virginia” was about her. It’s the Chinese National Anthem now.
I saw Big Trouble in Little China once and it was pretty good too. In conclusion, what I want for Christmas is a Virginia Woolf anthology with a compass in the binding and this thing which tells time. I think everyone should have a Virginia Woolf anthology. They’re very good for Christmas. I don’t think that a Dorothy Parker anthology is a very good Christmas present.
Tags: a christmas story, david gilmour is a silly billy, hazlitt magazine, sure thing dude, the outrage machine, women novelists
Someone shared a link to his Rate My Professors page and this quote from a student is telling:
“Very full of himself. Painfully obvious that he favours the guys in the class. When asked why there were no female authors on the syllabus said “I don’t believe in ‘good for you’ literature”. Some students love him, but I honestly think while he might be intelligent he hasn’t matured past adolescence.”
Some are speculating that Random House was hoping for link bait and while that’s disgusting, it’s preferable to thinking that this profile was published without thinking of the many many many offensive statements it contains.
Glad y’all are on it though!
I know the writer, and people who work at Hazlitt, they were definitely aware of how much of an asshat he made himself sound.
Interesting. So I guess they figured that the comment section and, well, the entire internet, would slap him around a bit? I can buy that logic I guess.
That was fast. This is great, because when I read the interview I was like, “This reads like Mallory wrote it.”
I was ready to sign up to join the Outrage Machine, but the comments on that article actually kept me from doing so. I’m glad everyone else feels similarly about this guy-guys’ guy guys.
You know what? It would be fantastic if he got trolled by this guy.
ETA: he publicly said he doesn’t like any Canadian authors? I’m not Canadian but I feel like if you’re going to teach literature at U of T you need to start unless you wanted to be kicked out by a mob of angry moose. Kind of like here in the US–the giant bald eagles will swoop in and deposit into the closest ocean any literature professor who refuses to love at least one US writer*.
*this may be an untruth
Canadian Lit is it’s own Thing at Canadian universities. Most profs who teach it teach only that. It’s also popular to disdain of Canadian literature, as it’s popular to disdain of Canadian movies, TV, or art, unless it’s popular in the States.
Yes, our perception of ourselves is actually pretty fucked.
D:
The US went through a similar thing up until the late 1950s or so, if my memories from American Studies classes hold true. My understanding is that US lit, history, etc. were all considered less prestigious subfields of study than other areas (namely Euro or specifically English).
I had read about really strong movements to keep Canadian culture from being subsumed by media from the States, but I thought that was out of pride, not out of a larger self-effacing disdain.
There are definitely strong movements; as Megano! mentioned, CanCon is a thing — broadcast systems are required to carry a minimum amount of Canadian content per day, as judged by the nationality of artists, actors, and writers. Films can only be eligible for certain tax breaks if they meet a minimum amount of Canadian talent involved, and even then it’s a no-go if you’re backed by too many Americans.
But it’s a double-edged sword, because you end up with some sub-par products that get airtime or funding just because they’re Canadian, whether or not it relates specifically to “Canadian culture” which no one is actually able to define.
It’s complicated; patriotism sometimes works differently up here.
THIS IS ALL FASCINATING. I am reading all of this with my chin propped on my fist and bug eyes. TELL ME MORE ABOUT CANADA.
Haley, I’m a proud Canadian and so I support it even though I know there are lots of problems. However, the amazing end result is that as a kid, you grow up hearing so many Canadian bands played all the time. I was probably at least 17 before I realized The Tragically Hip wasn’t as famous as U2, because they were played at the same frequency on the radio. Or bands like Billy Talent and Sloan- I thought they were HUGE. And was shocked about the fact that friends had seen Canadian bands in tiny spaces in the US because they weren’t actually that famous. Because I actually believed The Hip were as famous as U2. Sigh. (This is my favourite Hip song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6QDjDPRF5c)
GIRL, I am from Kingston, Ontario, and Gord Downie is still Mick Jagger to me.
I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE!
Canada! Did you know that Beverly Hills 90210 was based on our tv show Degrassi Junior High (which I think aired in the states, although some episodes were apparently ‘too racy’ to air down there). The rebooted Degrassi: TNG would star that girl from the rebooted 90210.
I am sad that I have a degree in Canadian history and this is all I can add.
We used to watch the original Degrassi Junior High in Health Class. Like for the life lessons? I know it was not just my middle school. So I guess we all thought that was what it was made for? Like health class teen drama, so when they started showing the Degrassi: TNG on cable we were all real confused. That is this Oregonian’s perspective on Degrassi.
The grant and tax break stuff is getting to be increasingly less true in television, becuase we’ve been finding a lot of success with co-productions (Vikings, The Borgias, The Tudors are/were all media fund co-productions!). It is still true in publishing and music, though.
Part of the reason why Canlit wasn’t that great before the ’60s is that these grants didn’t exist, so Canadian publishing houses didn’t exist, and a lot of writers couldn’t get published. And like, American and British publishers had a pretty strict definition of what a Canadian novel is and should be, which is why you got so many boring books about sad white guys in either the prairies or the Maritimes. But then CanCon regulations came out, and grants for publishing houses were created, and people like Margaret Atwood and Timothy Findley and Michael Ondaajte got published, and Canada got a better reputation.
I don’t think Canadian literature is disparaged the same way that other CanCon is. At least, that has not been my experience in the Canadian publishing industry and being largely a Canlit English Major.
Well, I’ll defer to you on that one, since you have more experience than I do. I only minored in English, but my perception was that Canadian Lit was the thing you slogged through because it was mandatory to your degree. I met a lot of people who rolled their eyes at it. I personally loved it and had an amazing prof, so I’m glad that’s not the case everywhere — maybe just my limited experience?
Well, it is pretty shit until the ’60s.
I kind of loved Roughing It In the Bush, actually!
OMG I am way to immature for that title.
Susanna Moodie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s great.
recently I’ve been getting books from Tundra for reviewing, and okay they’re a children’s/YA pub house and not “high literature”, but so far I’ve been really impressed with what they publish, and it has made me actually think to seek out other Canadian authors. (most of the ones I receive are MG or YA, often historical fiction – the most recent is “Little Red Lies”, which I haven’t started yet, but looks like a really interesting take on the 1940s in fiction by having the setting immediately after WW2, so the war is ended, but we’re not really in post-war period yet)
IT”S POPULAR TO DISDAIN OF STRANGE BREW?!?!?!
“… unless it’s popular in the States.”
Ok, we’re cool then.
The best part is that he’s a fucking published author himself. Way to support the struggling industry, Dave.
Seems like David Gilmour just really wants some nice Chinese woman to make him a sandwich – any day, any time, whenever he asks for it – so he can hang out with his serious heterosexual guy-friends in peace.
Ugh, god bless u, Mallory. It consistently blows my mind that you can write something this incisively funny like, minutes after the initial offending piece goes online.
This was actually written by David Gilmour, fixing the author tag now
The wolves who ate Virginia Woolf in 1942 after she finished writing The Joy Luck Club weren’t from Virginia, but the ones who wrote the screenplay for Everybody Loves Virginia Woolf were actually from there. And they all loved egg drop soup.
All the wolves were real guy-guys. Well, you know, not guy-guys, because they were wolves. Guy-wolves. Real guy-wolves, eating menstrual pads and everything.
It is a known fact that no real gal-wolf would ever eat a menstrual pad.
Great literature organically moves, and it never stays still. That’s why you need to be a rabidly heterosexual wolf to really write it. You have to have the strength and the stamina and the literal balls to run that fucker down over miles of dense-packed tundra, until great literature finally slides into a crumpled, exhausted heap at the bottom of a ravine, and then the pack of real guy-guy novelists howl and lunge forward, ripping chunks of meaning and insight from the corpse, spraying arcs of poeticism that glisten in the indifferent moonlight.
And that’s why women can’t write great literature.
In the end, though, what does David Gilmour’s opinion have to do with the price of tea in Virginia Woolf’s kitchen, which is in China?
Hm, I kinda want to vomit on this guy.
No Christmas Story quotes yet? Guys, I’m surprised at you.
I was working on it! (see below)
“My little brother had not eaten voluntarily in over three years.”
“Only one thing in the world could’ve dragged me away from the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window.”
“In the heat of battle my father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan.”
I love his quote, “I haven’t encountered any Canadian writers yet that I love enough to teach.” – yet everything else he says indicates that he loves himself PLENTY.
The theme I’ve been waiting for all my life. Poetry. Sheer poetry, Ralph! An A+ + + + + + + +…
This is by far my favorite fantasy sequence in that movie.
Can I write about what it means to be a Seriously Heterosexual Man?
Absolutely. Can I write about what it means to be a Flippantly Heterosexual Man?
“Well, it’s a piece of literature that’s been around for 60 years. It’s got something going for it.”
Because bad literature is always just BURNED after 10 years of existence.
Too bad this is not true for any work by women or Chinese or Chinese women authors!
BRB, writing a novel about Viriginia Woolf being a werewolf terrorizing Shanghai.
I saw a werewolf with a pad of paper in her hands,
Walking through the streets of Shanghai in the night.
She was looking for a place to get a room of her own,
to be her own person, and write.
Ah-ooo, etc. etc….
This makes me hope that we find incontrovertible proof of Fitzgerald and Hemingway’s one night of hot gay Parisian passion TOMORROW just so this guy has to amend his syllabus.
I get the feeling that even a night of hot gay Parisian passion would somehow still end up being rationalised as the most heterosexual of activities possible. ‘Their manly heterosexual desires were too much to even let a woman interfere during this one night of hot Parisian passion!’
IT’S NOT GAY IF IT HAPPENED IN EUROPE
The sex might not be gay in Europe but THE MANLY EMBRACES ARE.
Wait, how would being Chinese magically make an author worth / not worth teaching? Am I missing something?
I was confused about that too. I thought maybe he was getting asked because there’s a significant Chinese community in Canada and in Toronto specifically, but that’s just me speculating. (Why not say something about a First Nations writer or an Indian writer or…?) Maybe students have been asking about it because China is a rising power? Maybe he just had Chinese food the other night?
It honestly read to me like he was trying to think of the most “unusual” kind of writer he could and was stumbling over his words. Like, “Sorry (not sorry) I can’t find a lot of CHICK writers, or, or, CHINESE writers, or whatever, I just teach NORMAL writers, like Phillip Roth.”
That makes sense in that context. That being said, it’s hilarious to think that the most ethnically niche writer he can think of is an ethnicity that makes up 1/6 of the world’s population? Way to go, dude!
Also, that line about Roth and middle aged sexuality? hahahahahaa
Or he was thinking of Haruki Murakami and not realizing he’s Japanese, not Chinese? I dunno.
Perhaps because his award-winning novel is entitled A Perfect Night to Go to China? Which, presumably then, includes no actual information about China?
It’s because he’s also racist along with being sexist. “F-ing identity politics man! I just want to read a good old British book.” [Obvious disclaimer that I know you can be British and nonwhite, but I doubt he does]
I really wish he would not ever teach Virginia Woolf. He doesn’t deserve her.
Virginia Woolf looks down on David Gilmour from a room of her own in the afterlife, and says “LOL no.”
I’m just glad the quote’s not from the David Gilmour who plays guitar in Pink Floyd.
This whole thing would be infinitely more amusing if he was the former guitarist for Pink Floyd.
(It would also explain a lot of WTF misogynist moments in The Wall.)
I think Roger Waters might be the one to answer for that. (I’ve always suspected that record to be some kind of loathing self-portrait – man turns himself into a Nazi, after all.) Besides, Gilmour discovered Kate Bush!
Gilmour discovered Kate Bush? He gets spared the ritual death by Goddess-fire that all less-deserving men will eventually face.
Waters wrote The Wall when he realized he’d become so disassociated from his fans that he actually spat at one during a concert. So yes, there’s some self-loathing there.
Can we all just take his insistence that he’s only capable of teaching stuff he loves as an admission of mediocrity?
I think my righteous guitar solo on “Woolfs (Three Different Ones)” here perfectly explains why Virginia Woolf is the only woman author I teach. Hang on, hang on, I’ve just been informed that I’m not *that* David Gilmour. This explains why everyone was giving me the evil eye during Rick Wright’s funeral. Well, also I spent my eulogy doing my Charlie Chan impression and that didn’t go over so well. In any case, Jane Austin really sucks…
I don’t know man, Stone Cold Jane Austin has a pretty vicious leg drop.
Okay internet. Some one out there MUST have made a “Three Woolf Moon” gif at some point. Don’t let me down.
*Googles.*
AW YISSS!
My, what big words you use, Virginia.
Only seriously heterosexual men, not the ones who joke about it. Like Capote.
May I please request some erotic fan fiction (possibly illustrated) of Gilmour’s list of manly men authors? Ideally Chekhov and Roth going at it.
In keeping with Mallory’s tag (and my recent Venture Bros. binge), the following seems appropriate. It is also how I would hope I would react if faced with a professor like that.
GUYS HE DID A RESPONSE INTERVIEW IT JUST GETS EVEN BETTER: http://arts.nationalpost.com/2013/09/25/david-gil…
Learn your lession Gilmour! “I’ve been getting some letters this morning from people who are deeply, racially, ethnically, and intellectually offended by this.”
What does racially offended mean?
(I should’ve waited because it gets worse) Does he really think he’s the only one who teaches Truman Capote?
Also, how rude does a person have to be to give an interview and ignore the person doing the interview because there’s some guy speaking French? I cannot even begin to fathom that level of inconsiderateness.
It’s amazing his excuse is that he couldn’t concentrate on the interviewer because he was talking to a Frenchman. Pssh, young lady interviewers, right?
He thinks he’s the only one who teaches Tropic of Cancer too.
“But I think anybody who teaches Truman Capote cannot be attacked for being an anti-anything.”
Not one single thing. Truman Capote contains multitudes. Truman Capote is the Alpha and the Omega.
I made the same mistake. It’s like a rollercoaster that only goes up.
Oh, because the author is “young” and interested in making a “little” name for herself. And isn’t it always more important not to offend a man with one’s poor French accent? I believe it is.
” I speak French fluently”
“Quite frankly, I was speaking to a Frenchman, so I was more concerned with my French than I was with what I was saying to this young woman.”
DOES NOT COMPUTE. Also, I speak French very well, and when I have to switch rapidly between that and English, as with most people I’ve witnessed, the worst that happens is a long pause or using the wrong language for a word or two. I don’t somehow fall into an abyss of inter-linguistic dumbfuck remarks.
Well, sure, once you’ve traversed the plains of allegorical menstrual pads and scaled the hillocks of My God These Mountains Look Like Boobs I Should Write A Book Comparing Nature To Sex And Be Sure Nature Seems Better Than Women In The End, you’re bound to fall in the the abyss of inter-linguistic dumbfuck remarks.
All the maps say so.
You guys, Scott Fitzgerald isn’t a real heterosexual guy; he has a feminine sensibility. He doesn’t eat menstrual pads, is what I’m saying here.
okay this is maybe out of left field, but the “eating mentrual pads” line out of context reminds me of cannibalism. and in lots of places/stories/somewhere i heard this, ritual cannibalism has an element of ingesting qualities of the person you’re eating. like, here’s a family member, i am eating him, now he will always be part of me, even though he died. (also, more prosaic stuff like needing the protein due to mostly veg diet)
so i guess you can see where my thoughts are going every time i see the menstrual pad line and think of Gilmour idealizing nomming down on them as the epitome of manly manliness.
“Yes, this might hurt my chances at winning that prize. That is why I’m fake apologizing”
yeeesh
Trying to make a little name for herself??
A LITTLE NAME
ughhhh catching up on all this because traveling with baby I hate him mallory is perfect
And I thought he was deeming about her work in the transcript! What a Juicebox!
OH MAN
“It was a careless choice of words. I’m not a politician, I’m a writer.”
Oh gosh how wonderful that Canadian politicians are immune to careless words! They should hold a workshop for the US Congress so us neighbors down south can ALSO have politicians who don’t use careless words!
AHH and he can’t even name more than two women writers! Virginia Woolf and Alice Munro. If he weren’t SO CLEARLY a moron I would be more offended, I think.
Well, he mentions Margaret Atwood at one point, but apparently he thinks she’s a terrible writer!
“She said that to me personally in quite a chastising tone of voice.”
Margaret Atwood, inferior female novelist, dared chastize him!
Women are so mean and chastising! Why can’t they be like a nice mummy who never scolds.
I would expect a writer might be more careful with his words than even most politicians. I mean, isn’t he supposed to love and respect words?
Oh I should probably also post the transcript that just went up!
http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/gilmour-tr…
By the time I finished the Hazlitt piece, I was so suffused with bottled-up sad-rage that my eyes insisted on misreading the blurb at the bottom as “Shelf Esteem ruins every Tuesday.”
U of T students respond: Serious Heterosexual Guys for Serious Literary Scholarship https://www.facebook.com/events/199656653539929/?…
The full transcript! http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/gilmour-tr…. Spoiler alert: He was NOT taken out of context, and the “nope, no Chinese writers for me, no sir!” thing is a COMPLETE non sequitur.
From the National Post article: “What I am is I’m a middle-aged writer and I’m very interested in the middle-aged writers experience.”
From the transcript: “There are men eating menstrual pads, and licking menstrual blood from [inaudible] and by the time my students get to that they’re ready. Roth has the best understanding of middle-aged sexuality I’ve ever come across.”
*gag*
And this merited publication why?
The follow up interview:
http://arts.nationalpost.com/2013/09/25/david-gil…
In which he is EVEN MORE infuriating!!!!!!!
“Quite frankly, I was speaking to a Frenchman, so I was more concerned with my French than I was with what I was saying to this young woman. But I think anybody who teaches Truman Capote cannot be attacked for being an anti-anything.”
That really is awfully funny.
Thanks, you nearly killed me with laughter; I’m in hospital with pneumonia, and the guffaws nearly ended me, but I couldn’t stop reading.
300 Sandwiches, maybe?
This made me cry-laugh so hard a stranger came up to me with a Kleenex and asked if I was okay.
oh my god. i laughed so hard i almost choked.
Terrific.
The extra fun thing is that the syllabus for Literature by Real Guy-Guy Serious Heterosexuals, ViC 162, includes Truman Capote. Let that sit for a minute.
http://www.vic.utoronto.ca/students/academics/vic…
Gilmour has inspired the creation of a blog dedicated to Virginia Woo(lf): http://chinesevirginiawoolf.tumblr.com/
That is fantastic! I love the fortune cookie.
Oh my god, this was the lamest thing I’ve read all day.
There is nothing sexist or homophobic about wanting to teach only male writers in a boutique class that people voluntarily sign up to. There is nothing wrong in giving a cheeky interview that announces this. Some people only want to teach women writers (Women’s Studies), or only gay writers (Queer Studies), or only writers from a specific ethnic background (Post-Colonial Studies). Who gives a fu*k!? Same-sex oriented when it comes to literary taste: this is Gilmour’s thing, and no one has the right to chastise him for it, any more than the Pope has the right to mouth off at gay people. This ‘controversy’ shows only that Gilmour has extremely poor taste in dudes, because Henry Miller is probably the worst writer who ever lived.
Virginia Madsen and Michael Madsen are brother and sister. I realize that pointing this out in an article that also makes the claim that Virginia Woolf was 100 feet tall and menstruated knives is a little silly, but somehow I imagined that that statement was truly meant. If not, please excuse me!
I have not laughed like this foreks. Thank you, Mallory, for taking an axe to David Gilmour.
I was talking to a college classmate, and she said, “I’m not from around here.” My ears perked up. Great! Someone I can really relate to! “Oh, yeah, where are you from?” She said, “North Bend.” North Bend is 50 miles away. I thought “from around here” meant the Pacific Northwest or the continental U.S. or even the entire western hemisphere. Consequently, I’ve revised my definition of “from around here.”