Re: Fisho's Frolics
Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 12:34 pm
Been slogging away at my Ph.D novel again. One scene I recently revised was the bit where my main character talks about his girlfriend. My mum objected to the use of the word 'bird' and my supervisor said that some aspects came across as sexist, so I rewrote it. I couldn't get my main character NOT to call his girlfriend a bird, because that's just how he talks, but I tried to send it up a bit so it wouldn't be offensive. Feedback welcomed as always.
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Marty (Martine-Jayne in full, but that’s not her fault) manages the local IGA. She’s thirty, like me; a sturdy sort of bird with a wide grin and eyes the colour of a muddy creek. That sounds pretty bloody uncomplimentary, I know, but it isn’t meant to be. Muddy creeks are the best for catching yabbies, which are probably my favourite food in the world. Anyone who doesn’t like a fresh yabby, straight out of the water and dipped in a bit of brown vinegar, is a prawn. But try explaining that to Marty. She got quite stroppy and said that she wasn’t a bird, thanks very much, and that I was a chauvinist. I’m not a chauvinist. I have a lot of respect for women. All the ones I’ve known are much cleverer than I am, and without them I think the male species would still be hovering around on the middle of the evolutionary ladder with the apes and those things that look like a cross between a fish and a squirrel. As proof of this, I have many mates, and there is a vast difference between the houses of the ones who live with their wives or girlfriends, and the ones who live with other blokes. I won’t go into details, but there is something about an all-male house that unleashes the Beast.
As for birds—what’s the matter with them? I wouldn’t mind being compared to a bird at all. Look at the ostrich: its graceful height and majestic stride ... wait a minute, they’re the ones that stick their heads in the ground with the rest of them sticking out like a feather duster. The emu is just as tall, though, and it knows no fear, but its feathers are filthy, like they’ve been used to clean the barbecue with ... Look, I just like birds, they’re very intelligent and they have brilliant plumage and I think that ought to be a good enough explanation. And I’d personally rather be a bird than some of the names I’ve been called. Of course, I didn’t tell any of this to Marty, because I thought she might dong me one.
***
Marty (Martine-Jayne in full, but that’s not her fault) manages the local IGA. She’s thirty, like me; a sturdy sort of bird with a wide grin and eyes the colour of a muddy creek. That sounds pretty bloody uncomplimentary, I know, but it isn’t meant to be. Muddy creeks are the best for catching yabbies, which are probably my favourite food in the world. Anyone who doesn’t like a fresh yabby, straight out of the water and dipped in a bit of brown vinegar, is a prawn. But try explaining that to Marty. She got quite stroppy and said that she wasn’t a bird, thanks very much, and that I was a chauvinist. I’m not a chauvinist. I have a lot of respect for women. All the ones I’ve known are much cleverer than I am, and without them I think the male species would still be hovering around on the middle of the evolutionary ladder with the apes and those things that look like a cross between a fish and a squirrel. As proof of this, I have many mates, and there is a vast difference between the houses of the ones who live with their wives or girlfriends, and the ones who live with other blokes. I won’t go into details, but there is something about an all-male house that unleashes the Beast.
As for birds—what’s the matter with them? I wouldn’t mind being compared to a bird at all. Look at the ostrich: its graceful height and majestic stride ... wait a minute, they’re the ones that stick their heads in the ground with the rest of them sticking out like a feather duster. The emu is just as tall, though, and it knows no fear, but its feathers are filthy, like they’ve been used to clean the barbecue with ... Look, I just like birds, they’re very intelligent and they have brilliant plumage and I think that ought to be a good enough explanation. And I’d personally rather be a bird than some of the names I’ve been called. Of course, I didn’t tell any of this to Marty, because I thought she might dong me one.