The guy above with the adorable expression is Nobel Prize-winning novelist V.S. Naipul. A couple of weeks ago he made a claim that I’m sure you readers of the female persuasion will find absolutely charming.
I quote:
I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me.
Naipul says that women’s writing is easily identifiable because they are full of “sentimentality” and a “narrow view of the world”. This narrow view, he says, is because women are never “a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too.”
I mean, I’m no Nobel Prize winner, so I may just be blowing smoke out of my ass, but most of the authors that I’ve really felt a personal connection with have been women authors — even if I am in possession of a decidedly male appendage.