James Bacon e-mailed to let me know he has written a post for the Forbidden Planet blog, “Women and Science Fiction? Are You A Misogynist?”
It’s a suavely-phrased tribute to any number of novels by women authors he’s read, enjoyed and now recommends. One of them is available free online — always the right price for fans.
There’s just one thing missing. That loaded word in the title, misogynist, never appears in the body of his article.
The Russian playwright Chekov’s wise advice applies to occasions like these: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.”
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…unless of course your entire purpose is to screw with everyone in the audience who is familiar with the Chekov maxim.
While they’re all trying to figure out how your plot is going to use that pistol, you’re off prestidigitating, waving around some rabbits, hats and handkerchiefs.
But why was the pistol on the mantle if you weren’t going to use it?
So YOU would ask that question!
And I seem to remember that in “The Cherry Orchard” one character mentions he always carries a loaded revolver for self-protection… and it never appears again!
And where would the fun be For Vladimir and Estragon if Godot actually showed up? 🙂
Thanks for the link Mike.
I think I see smoke in the second paragraph:
“Of course, talk is talk and buying good books is a pleasure, so I thought I would deftly avoid the misogynistic minefield of opinion […]”
Another way of putting it without brining Russian playwrites into it is never bring up the word “murder” when explaining to the police that you don’t know where your wife has disappeared to. (I learned this on Columbo.)
I actually saw a production of Waiting for Godot where she walked on stage at the very end. It was a great finish and all the traditionalists were shocked.
CHris
Maybe we should do a performance of that famous collaboration of Beckett and Foglio, WAITING FOR BUCK GODOT.
@Petréa: That being the case, I blame Bill Gates. After I read the post twice without finding the word I used the brower’s search function to look for it and still came up empty.