And from this testimony of your own sex,

Thinking back to my previous read, Under the Net, it dawned on me that there was something fairly unique about it, that being it featured a male protagonist but was written by a woman.  And this would be the same case the other way, a male author writing a female character; it doesn't happen very often.

Looking back at the 58 books I've read so far, I only see two other books that truly fit into this category.  Number 56, Death Comes for the Archbishop, was entirely about a man, written by Willa Cather, while Atonement centers around a young woman, written by Ian McEwan.  There may be a couple of others I suppose, as one could argue that Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky featured a female protagonist, but I would respond by saying that although Kit had the most 'screen' time, she wasn't the main character.  And while Lena Grove is quite central to Light in August, she takes a seat to some of the more powerful characters in that book.

Thinking about it, it makes sense this would be the case, as one tends to be more familiar with their own sex, and hence better able to write a character that shares that trait.  It reminds me of a great Hemingway quote about a writer being able to omit a lot of details, "If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them."  While I think he was probably more talking about plot or settings, the same would apply to characters.  Naturally, a woman would know more about being a woman, which would show through her writing.

Of course this isn't to say that one can't write a character of a different gender, and there are no shortage of examples.  Atticus Finch is one of the giants of fiction, written by Harper Lee, ditto for Rhett Butler written by Margaret Mitchell.  But in neither case are they the central character of the book, no matter how important they were.

But I wonder why Under the Net made me think about this, when clearly there are other examples.  Never once do I remember pondering this question after finishing Atonement or Death Comes for the Archbishop.  I think the reason is that neither of those books featured a character I really enjoyed reading.  Jake Donaghue was one of my favorites so far and really sticks out in my mind, while the Archbishop and Briony do not.  In fact, I already don't remember the Archbishop's name (or if it was even given) and I'm not a hundred percent sure that Briony is correct (it is, but I had to look it up and probably wouldn't have remembered if I hadnt' found it such an odd name).

I also think the above Hemingway quote is bang on in this instance.  While Willa Cather was fascinated and well educated in the setting and time period in which she placed her novel, perhaps she wasn't as much an expert on the male psyche.  Conversely, I would never have guessed Under the Net was written by a woman, had that not been completely obvious from the cover and multiple other sources.  So many of Jake Donaghue's thoughts made me feel as if somebody understood how I thought things through.  Ironically this is what two people have told me was the reason they loved To the Lighthouse so much.  Perhaps that's why I didn't; I'm not a woman from the early 20th century.

As an update to my reading, Revolutionary Road is excellent.  And while there have been some rather intense moments, I haven't felt the need to use my cyanide pill yet.  However, I know things are going to turn for the worse, and the set-up is already there for it to be a complete nosedive (the mood, not the quality).