Talk:The Land of Little Rain

Image
The current image is incorrect, it is a picture of a book whose Wikipedia page was used as a template for this page. As far as I know there is no CC image of the cover, though I may be able to upload one myself. In the meantime, how should it be indicated that there is no image?

The 'politics' section
I find the entire "politics" section to be asinine, insane, subjective, unsupported by evidence, and wrong. The writer of the "politics" section claimed that the book "suggests" that which it does not--- the "suggests" that the section writer asserts is in her or his own head, and not evidenced in the book. One does not find anything within Ms. Austin's book that "suggests" any politics at all, let alone the politics the writer of the "politics" section has asserted. Other commentators, such as Edward Abbey, have interpreted Ms. Austin's book as having political consequences, but Ms. Austin's book itself is apolitical. --Desertphile (talk) 03:35, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

The politics section was indeed unsupported, and therefore appeared to be subjective. I have found and added multiple published sources on how Austin's politics work through aesthetics in the book. While explicit politics may not appear, it is important to address why she had to (or more optimistically, was free to) do political work in ways that might not be immediately obvious in comparison to those of her male contemporaries. See the Edwards and Shaefer references for how her work does indeed "suggest" politics. Kdewolff (talk) 23:13, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

I think the greater problem is that there is far too much literary and cultural analysis in that section (and possibly in other sections as well). That material is fine in a journal article, but Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a space for lengthy academic analysis. It's debatable whether it's "important" to include here discussions of "how Austin's politics work through aesthetics in the book" and "why she had to (or more optimistically, was free to) do political work in ways that might not be immediately obvious in comparison to those of her male contemporaries." I take no position on the validity of the material; I just don't think this is the place. 850 C (talk) 16:49, 11 September 2021 (UTC)