Monday, February 19, 2007
Sidney Sheldon's women
Sidney Sheldon died recently. I certainly recognized his name as a successful writer of television scripts like I Dream of Jeannie and The Patty Duke show and also of bodice-ripper novels. Upon reading his obituary I learned that he was a very interesting guy. He used research on his books as an excuse to globetrot.
He would spend months in the cities where he set his glamourous stories. It sounds like he had a very interesting life.
Now to the point of this post. I wanted to get a sense of who he was so I found a used copy of his first best-seller, The Other Side of Midnight. I am reading it now and I agree with the cover blurbs--it is definitely a page-turner.
It was first published in 1973 when he was 55. It is a very funny sort of fiction to read not so much because it was pre-feminist but because of his writer's perspective.
On the one hand it is very exciting. The plot devices are clearly thought out and well-executed so the story tracks beautifully. I guess I would expect that from a screenwriter. The strange thing is that the main characters are women and all of these women seem like men, no matter how beautiful, feminine and sexy they are. My impression is that even though Sheldon likes women a great deal, he is unable to convincingly portray the mind of a woman. Everything in the story seems like it is a man imagining being a woman. He is not attacking them. They are presented in a very favorable light, for the most part but the emotions don't ring true. Everything is about sex. Even this wouldn't be odd except that somehow it is from a man's point of view. Sheldon seems to have been very accurate in his portrayal of the places and history he describes. He must have done a great job researching them. But he failed to research the women who are at the center of everything. There is a peculiar emotional detachment that I can't ignore. The women's bodies are objects to the women themselves. As I have been reading I find myself wondering if I am the one who is out of sync. I keep having to remind myself that this is a guy voicing his thoughts through these female characters.
He would spend months in the cities where he set his glamourous stories. It sounds like he had a very interesting life.
Now to the point of this post. I wanted to get a sense of who he was so I found a used copy of his first best-seller, The Other Side of Midnight. I am reading it now and I agree with the cover blurbs--it is definitely a page-turner.
It was first published in 1973 when he was 55. It is a very funny sort of fiction to read not so much because it was pre-feminist but because of his writer's perspective.
On the one hand it is very exciting. The plot devices are clearly thought out and well-executed so the story tracks beautifully. I guess I would expect that from a screenwriter. The strange thing is that the main characters are women and all of these women seem like men, no matter how beautiful, feminine and sexy they are. My impression is that even though Sheldon likes women a great deal, he is unable to convincingly portray the mind of a woman. Everything in the story seems like it is a man imagining being a woman. He is not attacking them. They are presented in a very favorable light, for the most part but the emotions don't ring true. Everything is about sex. Even this wouldn't be odd except that somehow it is from a man's point of view. Sheldon seems to have been very accurate in his portrayal of the places and history he describes. He must have done a great job researching them. But he failed to research the women who are at the center of everything. There is a peculiar emotional detachment that I can't ignore. The women's bodies are objects to the women themselves. As I have been reading I find myself wondering if I am the one who is out of sync. I keep having to remind myself that this is a guy voicing his thoughts through these female characters.
# posted by blue-foot Sue @ 5:39 PM 
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
