Customer Reviews

Germaine Greer: Untamed Shrew

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Ever since a delusional friend told me that I would be very impressed by The Female Eunuch, I have wondered why Greer seems to attract so much admiration. I read most of her books, attempting to discover the attraction. (I gave up after the dreadful Daddy, We Hardly Knew You.) I would suggest that the reader who wants to see her at her best read the appropriately named The Mad Woman's Underclothes. Her earlier essays are witty, incisive and clever. The quality does deteriorate as the book goes on, but at least I had some insight into what people admire. I read this biography hoping to understand Greer's admirers; I still don't but perhaps that isn't Wallace's fault.

It is always difficult to ascertain how accurate biographical material is unless there is a lot of it to be compared. Therefore, I cannot say if Christine Wallace is accurate and insightful, but I will say that my readings of Greer's works make this biography very plausible.

I was actually a trifle surprised that other reviewers described Wallace as hostile: I thought she was kinder than Greer deserved. Sometimes when a subject comes across poorly, it is because of their own flaws, not the biographer's. Wallace actually admired a number of things about Greer: she thinks that The Female Eunuch was a powerful book, even if she did think that Greer was cashing in on the times. She admires her defiance of convention in her college days, remarks on her intelligence, her creativity and her talent for acting.

As for the charges that Greer is hypocritical, inconsistent, and tells wildly variant versions of her life, I can only suggest that the reader consult Greer's own work. Her thought is rather warped by mother-blaming and the conviction that in any society other than what I'll call Western-Industrial, all children are loved and well treated. How bad a mother was Mrs. Greer? Extremely abusive and probably mental ill, according to her daughter's writings, but Wallace says that Greer now denies that she was abused. Greer wants women in the Western-Industrial cultures to make a spectacle, particularly a sexual spectacle of themselves, while admiring the modesty of traditional cultures.

Greer is the woman, who in The Female Eunuch, so admired close-knit Italian family life that she wanted to buy a farm and leave her child(ren) to be raised in Italy by her tenants, while she continued to live her sophisticated life in England. (She has denied this, but I read the book.) She doesn't seem to care to live by her own convictions, or I suppose that she would be living in an arranged marriage in her beloved India. She wondered, I believe it was in Daddy, We Hardly Knew You, why Australians thought that she doesn't like them. My guess would be that they read her earlier books. A case can be made for many of the points that Greer raises, but taken altogether she is incoherent.

I don't sympathize with Greer's claims that this book has invaded her privacy. Even a public person has the moral, if not legal right to withdraw into privacy, but Wallace is not like the papparazzi muscling their way in. In most cases, Wallace has relied on Greer's own writings, interviews and public comments - it's not an invasion of privacy to comment on public materials. Her interviews with other people are chiefly about subjects that Greer herself made public. It is not as if Greer has sent her books out into the world while trying to live an otherwise retired life. She has gone to great lengths to make herself a provocative public figure. Those who participate in the brawl, excuse me, marketplace of ideas, have to accept the right of others to respond.

Among Western women born before 1960 Germaine has immense recognition, frequently accompanied by warmth and spirited regard. Her message might be mixed, her polemic often led to practical cul-de-sacs rather than liberation, but Greer's in-your-face style and determination to lead her own flagrantly unconventional life to her own satisfaction have been an incendiary inspiration to the mousy-brown downtrodden of the domestic world. Even those who were not following Germaine's example could gain vicarious pleasure from it, and were just that much less likely to accept a dull, dreary, handmaidenish existence.

That's a pretty fair picture of Germaine Greer if I do say so myself -- which I didn't, and it is actually a direct quotation from page 331 of Greer: Untamed Shrew by Christine Wallace herself. So much for some negative views about Untamed Shrew.

The biography is thoroughly researched, well written and rings true in relation to The Female Eunuch which I read when it came out, and more recent interviews you can see with Germaine Greer on the web.

Second wave feminism needed Germaine Greer, and Christine Wallace makes that clear. Greer does not come out of the biography all light and goodness by any means, but her complexity probably contributed to her effectiveness both as an author and in debating forums. My own view of Germaine Greer became more sympathetic reading the Wallace biography, and gave me a sense of the personal history and polemical tactics that make The Female Eunuch such a riveting read.

Christine Wallace's writing made me a proud member of the anonymous society. Teh above statement encompasses, Wallace's attempt at writing Greer's biography. The title and the subject matter remain to be the only points of interest in the book. Based upon Ms. Wallace's personal opinions, perceptions and most importantly judgements, the book fails to deliver what it claims (A book that Greer tried to stop from publishing). Her assessment of Greer barely attempts to penetrate the epidermis of the woman who caused a stir and caused the Western society to "smell the coffee" by writing "The Female Eunuch". Wallace claims that Greer was never a feminist - Eunuch was an accident she wrote. It sounds like a personal opinion, which brings about a debate, but nevertheless, it is not a biography. Weak bibliography, jumpy and choppy paragraphs and unsupported claims make this an insult to all biographers of modern times. This is truly a book that would scare any celebrity merely because it doesn't reveal anything, yet it claims so much. A personal advise for Christine Wallace: Your talents would be better suited to a publication like the National Enquirer or the Globe.

Christine Wallace's writing made me a proud member of the anonymous society. Teh above statement encompasses, Wallace's attempt at writing Greer's biography. The title and the subject matter remain to be the only points of interest in the book. Based upon Ms. Wallace's personal opinions, perceptions and most importantly judgements, the book fails to deliver what it claims (A book that Greer tried to stop from publishing). Her assessment of Greer barely attempts to penetrate the epidermis of the woman who caused a stir and caused the Western society to "smell the coffee" by writing "The Female Eunuch". Wallace claims that Greer was never a feminist - Eunuch was an accident she wrote. It sounds like a personal opinion, which brings about a debate, but nevertheless, it is not a biography. Weak bibliography, jumpy and choppy paragraphs and unsupported claims make this an insult to all biographers of modern times. This is truly a book that would scare any celebrity merely because it doesn't reveal anything, yet it claims so much. A personal advise for Christine Wallace: Your talents would be better suited to a publication like the National Enquirer or the Globe.