It's not normal for me to have a bone to pick with Foyles. Generally, though it lacks the eccentric, shambolic air that defined it once upon a time, I like Foyles. It's layout is nice and airy, it always picks interesting, often obscure titles to put out on its tables, not just bestsellers or heavily promoted titles, and it's staff are intelligent and helpful.
But I went in there today to find a book that's been on my Amazon wishlist for about three years, but which I've never got around to buying: Lolly Willowes or The Loving Huntsman by Sylvia Townsend Warner. I was browsing the Guardian blogs today (work avoidance mostly) and saw that it had been
reviewed as part of an ongoing look at some Classics reissued by Virago. I couldn't however, find it in general fiction. A quick trip to the information desk told me that it was stocked in lesbian fiction on the second floor.
Me and my two friends (all of us friend from uni, all women of colour- hee, that term makes me giggle- and all feminists) went up to have a look at this section. It was a small section, sandwiched on to a book case that was part of the much larger gay section, and seemed a little odd to me. Most of the titles were unfamiliar to me, but I did only quickly scan the booksheleves. I was however surprised to see selected Rebecca West and one Daphne Du Maurier novel, and Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Armin; all of which there were multiple copies of. Just above it, and also stocked in lesbian interest adjacent to it, was Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy. Levy, Townsend Warner and Du Maurier are/were lesbians. Rebecca West decidedly wasn't. There isn't much information out there about Von Armin.
All three of us found this sectioning off problematic in some way. I do find it odd though that a book like Lolly Willowes which is about female emancipation, should be stocked
only in the lesbian ficition shelves. This is tricky territory. As an Asian I sometimes find 'ethnic' sections in bookshops to be tiresome; though I can see why some people may find them useful/necessary (but then there's a whole other issue of post-colonial literature, especially Indian, being lauded these days, which seems to be getting to people, though they are tiptoing around the issue- see the general reaction to The White Tiger winning the Booker, lots of criticism but no-one really seemed to say out loud what they were clearly thinking).
I can't speak for how lesbians feel about the paltry section which is dedicated to them (and which is seriously, and with the pun only slightly intended, a bitch to find). But isn't this sort of labelling a little old? It certainly felt tired to me. The section was small, and seemd ill-thought out. On the Foyles website, there is no mention of a 'lesbian fiction' categorisation. The only possible hint to that is the more ambiguous tag of 'female friendship', which when clicked on produced a list of similarly categorised books which included Vanity Fair and The Rules of Engagement by Anita Brookner (a book which from reviews, is a genuine examination of platonic friendship). Perhaps female friendships are of interest to lesbian women- but they are to straight women too. The gay section contained gay fiction, and lots and lots of gay erotica (with front covers that were also quite giggle worthy). It felt more explicit, more thoughtful and was a hell of a lot bigger.
I think this may be down to the complexity of women (just to talk up my own gender fora bit). Any intelligent woman looking for a good fiction book, whether straight or gay, would probably be found two floors down, browsing General Fiction like everyone else. Gay male writers are of course there in abundance and obviously there are lesbian or bisexual authors to be found there to- in books by Virginia Woolf, Patricia Highsmith, Alice Walker, Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith, Sarah Waters, Patricia Cornwall...and that's just off the top of my head- all writers that no-one would dream of sectioning off as purely for lesbian interest only, and rightly so. To trek two floors up for 50 or so books labelled as of interest to gay women, feels a little insulting and reductive. And on the flip-side, people who wouldn't normally gravitate to the lesbian fiction section are being deprived of books like Lolly Willowes. Like I said, this is a tricky subject. I never really felt the need to read characters who were the same race as me growing up; I, like most kids, could read colour-blind (and gender and sexuality blind too). But there were times when I'd feel the absence or the stereotypes- a prime example is when, after much strenuous reading, I got to the part in the Lord of the Rings where Tolkien mentions Easterlings and Haradrim, and realised with a jolt that that was my place, if you will, in the narrative. It's no bad thing, as an antidote to that, to have multi-cultural (that poor lambasted word!) or gay characters. To those people that may be seeking out a representation of themselves in literature, I expect a dedicated gay section may come in handy. But when it's as small and arbitrary as the one at Foyle's it does seem to be frankly unnecessary.
ALSO: I saw the re-make of The Women yesterday and was completely bewildered by it. It probably merits its own post. And for anyone who doesn't know of it
bookmooch is actually a really great way to get rid of unwanted books and get hold of one's you want. If you can have some forebearance, and don't mind posting stuff out to people for free (which I don't) it works very well indeed.
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