This piece is a satire, and all quotes aside from those from Professor Gilmour’s interview are fictional.
David Gilmour, writer and professor at the University of Toronto’s Victoria college, mysteriously lost his manhood (for lack of a better word) this week, causing much confusion amongst the medical community. The medical mystery is all the more curious considering Gilmour’s controversial statements regarding his syllabus in an interview with Random House last month. In an incredible demonstration on how to never sell a book ever again, Gilmour had this to say about literature written by women:
“I’m not interested in teaching books by women… Usually at the beginning of the semester a hand shoots up and someone asks why there aren’t any women writers in the course. I say I don’t love women writers enough to teach them, if you want women writers go down the hall.”
Doctors are stating that backlash from the statements may have led to a bizarre biological response. Gilmour’s ‘unit’ itself may have shrivelled away after a traumatizing nightmare in which he envisioned himself being chased down the hall from his classroom by a mob of women brandishing various sharp objects whilst reciting Margaret Atwood poetry.
However, doctors are still sceptical. Dr. Mitchell Andrews, psychologist at Toronto General Hospital, spoke to the press yesterday expressing his concern that Gilmour may have in fact, always been of the fairer sex, hence his over zealous attempts to “constantly be seen publicly reading F. Scott Fitzgerald, while drinking a glass of scotch and/or smoking a cigar.”
In his infamous interview, Gilmour had gone on to say that he is only really fit to teach “serious heterosexual guys”, such as “F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Real guy-guys. Henry Miller. Philip Roth.” In an attempt to defend himself against the onslaught of Twitter hatred after the original interview, Gilmour told CBC that his teaching capacity does not expand beyond “people whose lives I feel are vaguely close to mine, but whose work I really adore.” Gilmour explained, “There are a lot of other people who are equally good writers. I don’t teach them not because they’re not equally good, but because I don’t emotionally connect with them as I do with other writers.”
And while we are sure that Gilmour’s life does “vaguely resemble” say, an American surrealist writer born in 1930s Brooklyn, or a 19th century Russian anarchist (I mean, a dude is a dude, right?) we have to wonder, what writers can Gilmour relate to now? Last time we checked, Philip Roth never woke up without a member.
Could this mean a new beginning for David Gilmour? Will he be trading in his Chekov for Jane Austen? If Gilmour’s ability to connect to literature on an emotional level is, in fact, solely based on a single chromosome, how will his class function considering his new… Equipment? His students may expect him to appear in class next week with a bottle of Chardonnay and a copy of ’50 Shades of Grey’. I’m sure his female students will be much relieved to finally explore some literature that they can really “emotionally connect with.” I know I tried reading ‘Anna Karenina’ once, but my vagina kept getting in the way of my understanding.
P.S. Since Canadian writer Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for Literature this week, I expect there might be one more female writer on his student’s reading list besides that one short story by Virginia Woolf that he chooses to teach. I mean, the rest of the world loved her, Gilmour. Get on board.