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Nanomashoes posted:There's also a touch of the 'tism in calling your literature thread mates to make fun of the guy who doesn't like the book you like. It maybe looks like I came running when Mel called "avenger's assemble" or whatever but I was actually reading the thread, i just haven't started the book yet since I am finishing one due at the library this week honest 
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Jun 14, 2016 20:29
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Nanomashoes posted:There's also a touch of the 'tism in calling your literature thread mates to make fun of the guy who doesn't like the book you like. yeah that was lame gently caress that guy
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Jun 14, 2016 20:34
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I got my book today, so I, uh, I'm going to go read it now...
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Jun 14, 2016 22:12
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This book was pretty good. And for whatever reason the end was actually quite gripping, I was reading at a ferocious pace and barely getting all the paragraphs. I'm not even sure why.Mel Mudkiper posted:I like how the books correlates the social expectations of femininity with the consumption of meat. Yeong-Hye's nightmares begin as the idea that she is taking another thing's life and essence into herself in order to survive. In the same way, Korean culture seems constructed in such a way that men survive off the essence of women in the same way that animals eat other animals to live. The three sections seem to be a meditation on how men "consume" women. In the first chapter, Yeong-Hye exists as a vessel her husband takes from in order to establish his own existence. Food, sex, clothing, social stability, these are all things her husband seems to consume and that Yeong-Hye is expected to provide. Notice when she begins to break down, even her own family is less concerned with her own well-being than with the fact she is unable to provide for her husband's expectations. One thing I noticed in this breakdown is that while the first two chapters are each centred on Yeong-Hye and a male predator, the third is between two women. However the third still has a parasitic male presence in the form of the son. But he differs from the previous two in that 1. he has no choice in the matter being a literal child 2. he appears to be an anchor for the sister and prevent her from sliding into withdrawal like Yeong-Hye due to her responsibility toward him. He certainly gets better shrift in the narrative than the other male characters. I'm not sure what to make of this - there's a political reading of hope for the next generation but I don't like it, it feels crude and out of place and doesn't gel with the fact that the sister abandons him to another woman (parasiting on her) to care for Yeong-Hye as she declines.
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Jun 15, 2016 21:19
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Peel posted:One thing I noticed in this breakdown is that while the first two chapters are each centred on Yeong-Hye and a male predator, the third is between two women. However the third still has a parasitic male presence in the form of the son. But he differs from the previous two in that 1. he has no choice in the matter being a literal child 2. he appears to be an anchor for the sister and prevent her from sliding into withdrawal like Yeong-Hye due to her responsibility toward him. He certainly gets better shrift in the narrative than the other male characters. I'm not sure what to make of this - there's a political reading of hope for the next generation but I don't like it, it feels crude and out of place and doesn't gel with the fact that the sister abandons him to another woman (parasiting on her) to care for Yeong-Hye as she declines. I think this ties into the idea that parasitism and consumption is essentially "inescapable." A child is a parasite of the mother. Does that make the child evil? no. Does it make the mother submissive? no. However, the very nature of parenting is to sacrifice of yourself for another thing. I think its used as the final example because it is deliberately irresolvable. Women suffer became men take from them in order to thrive. But in the end, we all take from others in order to thrive, whether its the life we consume as food or the lives we consume in our relationships. I think she deliberately complicates the ending so that we are not motivated to look for an easy resolution to the fundamental question.
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Jun 15, 2016 21:53
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Wow best botm ever
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Jun 16, 2016 04:34
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Started this today finally. Not too far in yet, but I'm enjoying it. One thing that struck me immediately was the husbands decadent descriptions of all the meaty foods that she used to cook or when they are out with clients (in contrast to how he describes the vegan diet she eats). It reminded me a lot of the food descriptions in Mo Yan's Republic of Wine; gluttony and people's relationship with food is a big theme of that novel, so I am interested to see how that ties in here as well.
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Jun 17, 2016 23:10
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I have also just started this and am not too far in - just finished the work dinner part with her husband. The whole world they live in seems so miserable and suffocating. The husband mentions that he often works until midnight, and everything has to be done a very specific way. I tried describing the beginning to someone - how she stops eating meat and it is causing chaos in her husband's life - and it was hard to really explain why something like that could upset a relationship so much. He really doesn't seem to see her as a person in her own right. She slots into the image he has of a good life for himself and completes a necessary function, and that is all.
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Jun 17, 2016 23:50
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I have just finished the 2nd part. Oh boy. I wouldn't say I'm enjoying it, but it's certainly a challenging vision of patriarchy. The obsession with the Mongolian spot seemed reminiscent of the mark that appears on Toru's face in the Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Is there a particular reverence attached to such spots in Korea/Japan?
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Jun 18, 2016 20:22
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I have just finished it. I was expecting to only read while eating lunch today, but I couldn't actually put the book down so just kept reading until I was done. I had no idea what to expect from this and was mainly intrigued to join this month by Mel's enthusiasm, but what a great read. One of the things that I noticed in the first two sections was that both the husband and the brother in law at times find the affection and desire of women to care for others to be repulsive and oppressive. When Yeong-hye tries to kill herself in the first section and her mother comes to the hospital really concerned about her daughter's suicide attempt, the husband can't understand her concern and finds it repulsive and is annoyed that he has to deal with a mother's concern over her daughter, his wife. In the second section, the brother in law mentions that he finds his wife's goodness to be oppressive - how she shows compassion for her sister and dedication to raising their son and looking after both of them while also running a business. He shows no self-awareness of his own behaviour and gives no consideration to the idea that others are not just there to provide for him but also have their own needs - as he says, he is the real victim here. The brother in law section shows several instances where his wife is caring for him and being a loving, stable presence in his life, and he seems to resent her for it because it makes him uncomfortable to realise that he is not returning this care and love, that he is taking but not giving anything in return. I suppose that level of self-awareness is one step more than the husband in the first section, but he finds dealing with the reality of who he is (everything from his imperfect physical body to his selfish relationship with a woman he mostly ignores) so uncomfortable that he runs away from it and turns to the idealised fantasy he can create with art. Everything is perfect in his head, and he cannot tolerate that reality doesn't live up to those expectations. The final chapter seems to take that self-awareness another step further into a kind of acceptance. Enfys fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Jun 19, 2016 |
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Jun 19, 2016 19:12
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knees of putty posted:I have just finished the 2nd part. Oh boy. I wouldn't say I'm enjoying it, but it's certainly a challenging vision of patriarchy. The obsession with the Mongolian spot seemed reminiscent of the mark that appears on Toru's face in the Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Is there a particular reverence attached to such spots in Korea/Japan? I had to look up what a Mongolian mark is, and I don't really know much about Korea, but wikipedia mentions this in the article on it: "Korean mythology explains the spot as a bruise formed when Samshin halmi (Korean: 삼신할미), a shaman spirit to whom people pray around childbirth, slapped the baby's behind to hasten the baby to quickly get out from his or her mother's womb." No idea if it has much meaning beyond that, but I did notice that at several points in the second section, a connection is drawn between that spot and children/youth (which I suppose is obvious since it is something children tend to grow out of), and at one point he comments that he finds the idea of her having a mark which is only present in children to be arousing. When he calls his ex wife later, it is only because he wants to see his son. Maybe that predatory part of him finds the innocence of children appealing (I don't mean that he is a pedophile, but more that they also represent an innocence he no longer has and is trying to take back for himself or consume)? Yeong-hye's sister sees the happiness and desire to please in her son distressing as she knows that he will soon lose that and she cannot prevent it, so she abandons him for someone who never lost a mark that children grow out of.
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Jun 19, 2016 19:33
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A pretty good choice for BOTM. Kang synthesises some really complex ideas around feminism, patriachal society, and anxiety. I like the reading of mel mudkiper and enfys - it's pretty convincing. What also struck me is not just the lack of agency of Yeong-hye, but the almost entire absence of voice. Even though the book is pivoted around her withdrawal, her motivations are purely articulated by the antagonist. We do not know at all what she is attempting to achieve, we can only observe the reaction of others to the only freedom of choice that Yeong-hye appears to have. All three of them resent this freedom. Also interesting to me is the vegetarianism - it made me think that this was partly about how meat eaters generally respond to vegetarianism. Many people consider you mad or at least a bit strange not to eat meat. Being vegetarian can often be viewed as a rejection of a patriachal society. At one point the doctor refers to Yeong-hye as anorexic. It's a fairly accurate portrayal of anorexic nervosa - sufferers have an irrational fear of food often resulting from societal anxiety, and no pleas to eat are successful.
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Jun 19, 2016 19:45
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Finished this last night. Don't know if I can write a full analysis beyond what Mel already discussed, so just a few observations to expand upon the points he and others have made: - I noticed the POV shift (from first person to third person) after the first part and was mulling over what it was about. Now I have an idea: it's reflective of the perspective character in that section. The first section's narrator is almost cartoonishly self-centered, so of course his POV is all first person (I even think there's some unreliability there: he talks about how his wife's family is immediately on his side, but later in In-hye's section she talks about how she never trusted him and should have stepped in sooner). The brother-in-law in the second section shifts to a cold third person perspective. Even more important here are a lot of the dehumanizing elements used: several characters aren't even given full names (P and J, "the lady in 709") and he talks about the initial sketches of his sister-in-law don't even have a face (and later he has a dream where her face is obscured by a bright light). In the last section In-hye also has a third person perspective but with her it slightly more open; she is obviously more empathetic and cares about her sister, her son, and even the other patients in her sister's ward. She remembers stories about her sister and their childhood etc, she actually takes on her sister's pain where the others didn't. - In addition to the imagery of consumption and parasitism that others have brought up, there is also recurring imagery of marking others. The brother-in-law compares the spot of blood that was left on him by Yeong-hye's suicide attempt to her Mongolian mark, there's also obviously the flower painting, there's probably more I'm missing. - Speaking of the woman in 709, she gets used by the sister and brother-in-law too, basically babysitting overnight multiple times during the paint incident and In-hye's hospital visits (also to my point earlier, the brother-in-law refers to his wife as "Jin-woo's mom" when talking to this lady) I'm going to skim back over it over the next few days and see if anything else jumps out at me. It was very good though, an excellent pick (short and full of interesting themes to discuss)
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Jun 23, 2016 02:43
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If we're gonna start taking noms for next month, I want to recommend The Little Red Chairs by Edna Obrien. It has a lot to discuss, especially given the recent Brexit. Edit: or The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota but it is much longer. Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 17:16
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Next month is going to be Lud in the Mist because it did well in the last poll, is respectably intelligent, is accessible, and is free -- I want to make sure we keep the BotM relatively accessible. I don't want to just do the same thing every month even if the "same thing" is "high-quality modern realistic lit fiction". That said I'll definitely add both of those to the next poll (which will be at the end of July). Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 17:35
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Next month is going to be Lud in the Mist because it did well in the last poll, is respectably intelligent, is accessible, and is free -- I want to make sure we keep the BotM relatively accessible. I don't want to just do the same thing every month even if the "same thing" is "high-quality modern realistic lit fiction". Fair enough, not sure I would really recommend either book for August though as the zeitgeist would have passed by then.
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Jun 28, 2016 18:08
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Mel Mudkiper posted:If we're gonna start taking noms for next month, I want to recommend The Little Red Chairs by Edna Obrien. Both of these sound really interesting. I would like to read LitM, but could we maybe save that for August if these suggestions are appropriate given Brexit?
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Jun 28, 2016 20:29
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Fair enough, not sure I would really recommend either book for August though as the zeitgeist would have passed by then. Really? I feel like we won't even be seeing some of the actual consequences for another few months. If you are talking about the 24-hour news cycle it will probably have moved on unless literally nothing happens in that time (which seems unlikely with Trump running for president) I'm cool reading either tho
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Jun 28, 2016 21:42
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Guy A. Person posted:Really? I feel like we won't even be seeing some of the actual consequences for another few months. If you are talking about the 24-hour news cycle it will probably have moved on unless literally nothing happens in that time (which seems unlikely with Trump running for president) Well both books deal with the explicit contexts of migrant labor in London and the rest of England which isn't really connected to the Brexit per se but is definitely in the zeitgeist of "why did England do this very stupid thing". Sure the geopolitical ramifications of the decision will be ongoing but the current conversation about multiculturalism in England will probably have passed on by then
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Jun 28, 2016 21:51
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ah yea word
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Jun 29, 2016 01:21
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It won't have, trust me, the fun's just getting started. Anyway, 2/3 through and this is a good book and insanely hosed up. I'm wondering if there's any significance to her seemingly becoming more attractive to men as she sheds her humanity, when she was initially described as fairly plain. Also if there's anything to J refusing to have sex w her
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Jun 29, 2016 02:44
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:It won't have, trust me, the fun's just getting started. I was thinking 3 possibilities: 1) the husband is the one mostly calling her plain and he is an unreliable narrator (also the only first person narrator) and just sees her that way because she doesn't fit his skewed desires 2) the catch-22 of everyone wanting her to eat meat but also having an unrealistic idea of what a woman's body should look like (basically she gets skinnier when she stops eating meat) 3) a lot of it also seems to do with the taboo. I believe both the husband and brother-in-law describe each other's wives as attractive; they basically are getting off on cheating, they don't care about how traditionally attractive anyone is I guess 1 and 3 are sort've the same idea
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Jun 29, 2016 03:08
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Her husband describes her as plain and even a bit ugly in the first few pages, but he seems to like that about her because it is completely unchallenging and undemanding of any effort on his part to maintain the relationship. He mentions that if she were beautiful, he would have felt pressured to prove himself a worthwhile mate, and he was happy that he could just sort of "acquire" her without any real effort. Once she stops eating meat and asserts herself in something, it's like he starts to notice her physically. She's no longer plain and unremarkable in his eyes, but initially attractive and then hideously grotesque as his section continues. He describes her as ghastly and corpse-like for the business dinner, almost as though she becomes uglier to him the longer she defies his expectations of her.
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Jun 29, 2016 16:43
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The brother says he doesn't know why he's attracted to her because she's less conventionally attractive than his wife, so I don't think it's just the husband's perspective, but I suppose it ultimately reinforces the same pointCorrode posted:Post history: 10,000 posts in the Malazan thread lmao Lunchmeat Larry fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 17:57
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what the gently caress is malazan
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Jun 29, 2016 19:46
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me
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Jun 29, 2016 20:37
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:the Malazan thread owns because it's full of people complaining that they have to slog through "pondering" and "philosophy" to get the "payoff" of epic anime hero battles at the end, and arguing that most of that boring stuff is just there to make said cool anime swordfights feel well-earned and worth persevering for And in overall less pages, through the Mhybe, Malazan deals with very similar themes of this book but without the banality, including the woman reduced to a tool, being caged into a purpose imposed on herself, lack of empathy all around her, self-harm and dream sequences that are actually meaningful and hide layers of meaning for anyone with enough care to pay attention. That's the difference between just riffing on "literary" themes with the purpose of getting attention and gratify certain circles, and actually having something meaningful to say. If you notice, no one engages with the themes in this book, we all talk about it as a separate distant thing as if it was a description of people living hundreds of years ago. It's dead. What this book really delivers is about making the reader feel better than the characters shown in the book, and create a sense of detachment to see them as a curious experiment without any consequence.
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Jun 30, 2016 05:00
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Abalieno posted:That's the difference between just riffing on "literary" themes with the purpose of getting attention and gratify certain circles, and actually having something meaningful to say. What is? Your post is literally "there's a part that's more meaningful in my thing, therefor it's more meaningful". Can you maybe explain why it's more meaningful? I also don't see how people aren't engaging with the themes by discussing them, but I'm not great at analysis so I won't deny if I ummm did it bad
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Jun 30, 2016 18:33
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Abalieno posted:And in overall less pages, through the Mhybe, Malazan deals with very similar themes of this book but without the banality, including the woman reduced to a tool, being caged into a purpose imposed on herself, lack of empathy all around her, self-harm and dream sequences that are actually meaningful and hide layers of meaning for anyone with enough care to pay attention. One point I do agree on - I did think the dream sequences in The Vegetarian were a bit... trite, I guess. They didn't bother me but nor were they as striking and original as the rest of the book, they wandered into the realms of cliché quite a bit. Not sure what I thought about the ending. I feel like the last third was generally a bit... muddled? I understand not wanting to provide easy answers or clear conclusions, I don't think the book could have had those. I feel like it lacked the clarity of purpose of the first two parts, though, with the narrative straying in random directions and even feeling a bit farcical/silly at points (the handstands). I'm finding it unfortunately hard to articulate, wondering if anyone felt the same way. I probably sound a bit over-critical, I still really loved it, probably one of the best books I've read this year.
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Jun 30, 2016 18:49
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:The brother says he doesn't know why he's attracted to her because she's less conventionally attractive than his wife, so I don't think it's just the husband's perspective, but I suppose it ultimately reinforces the same point Lunchmeat Larry posted:Anyway, 2/3 through and this is a good book and insanely hosed up. I'm wondering if there's any significance to her seemingly becoming more attractive to men as she sheds her humanity, when she was initially described as fairly plain. Also if there's anything to J refusing to have sex w her Not sure I like where the book goes in part 3, but I'm not articulate enough to say why. It seems like it was building up in the first two parts and then felt like a much softer coda rather than a climax or proper ending. But I was totally taken in by the writing throughout (good on the translator), and was glad I read it. I would be curious to hear more thoughts about the third section. --- A few vaguely related bits: I read in the Slate review that this book was originally written and published as three stand-alone pieces, and I believe it. You could split reading it into three days or three parts of a day. Also, the publisher (Hogarth) is kind of new in town, and seems to concentrate on the weird side of prestigey stuff like this. They did Michel Faber's last (and maybe final) book and have a series of Shakespeare remixes.
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Jun 30, 2016 19:46
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:...I feel like the last third was generally a bit... muddled? ... it lacked the clarity of purpose of the first two parts, though, with the narrative straying in random directions and even feeling a bit farcical/silly at points (the handstands). I'm finding it unfortunately hard to articulate, wondering if anyone felt the same way. Totally missed this. Yep, agreed, including the hard to articulate part, but I like how you put it. It was getting more intense between parts one and two, and then it seemed like Kang didn't quite know what to do next.
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Jun 30, 2016 19:51
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Abalieno posted:That's the difference between just riffing on "literary" themes with the purpose of getting attention and gratify certain circles, and actually having something meaningful to say. I am not trying to be a jerk or sarcastic or anything but I seriously have no loving idea what you are talking about
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Jun 30, 2016 20:11
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I found this in the jacket copy: "Like Malazan, Han Kang's The Vegetarian was written by multiple authors and fuses numerous plotlines into a fantasy epic running over the course of thousands of years. If you have a taste for 'blood and bone,' you'll munch right into The Vegetarian!"
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Jun 30, 2016 20:29
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I am not trying to be a jerk or sarcastic or anything but I seriously have no loving idea what you are talking about I think, and I'm not positive here, but I think what they mean is... There are multiple ways of engaging with literature. Often times, literary works attempt to tell us an opinion or moral that the author wants to communicate. People reading the Malazan Books of the Fallen series, like many people who engage with cult fantasy literature, are more prone to discuss the complicated events, political scenarios, and character relationships, than they are to try and see what the series two authors are attempting to tell us about the human condition. They are more interested in how the magician fights the floating zombie city than what those two things could represent. On the other hand, sometimes literature does this too bluntly. The Vegetarian, by not doing enough complicated world building, and by not giving us the sort of complicated scenarios and situations that allow us to treat these characters as fully fleshed out human beings, merely explains the author's opinion. By simply riffing on ideas like 'feminism' and 'abuse', it does the ideas a disservice by not giving them the full treatment that they deserve. A better novel would treat its characters less as stock characters to embody vague ideas, and more like real people. The "good" version of the former is something like The Left Hand of Darkness. The "bad" is Terry Goodkind or Piers Anthony The "good" version of the latter is J.M. Coetzee. The "bad" is Jonathan Franzen or Jodi Picoult At least, I think that's the point they're trying to make...  I personally thought The Vegetarian was very good, and I wish I had less cliche words to describe it than "haunting" and "evocative", as well as something to contribute to the discussion that wasn't just repeating Mel's posts verbatim.
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Jun 30, 2016 20:55
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"I think they mean that the book about a woman that turns into a plant needs more wizards to be more human and literary"???
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Jun 30, 2016 20:58
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Guy A. Person posted:What is? Your post is literally "there's a part that's more meaningful in my thing, therefor it's more meaningful". Can you maybe explain why it's more meaningful? Because it's pointless and essentially off-topic to talk about another book that subjectively treats similar themes but better. I was just making an example to say it's not a problem of dealing with certain themes, it's a problem of how you do it. quote:I also don't see how people aren't engaging with the themes by discussing them, but I'm not great at analysis so I won't deny if I ummm did it bad Your analysis is not the problem. I'm NOT saying people in this thread don't understand the book themes or poorly understood it. My point is completely different. I mean engaging in the sense it forces you to reconsider yourself and your vision of things, instead of merely confirming biases you hold already. This book changes nothing beside reaffirming convictions already strong in the reader. It's a "fraud" because of how conveniently packaged is to flatter a certain reader group. I see reactions more of a (parodying): hey look at these weird Koreans and their alienating society, I'm so glad I don't live there. As I was saying before: by making characters without any trace of empathy and so pitiless the writer forces the reader to take a detached point of view on the story. NO ONE identifies with those male characters. With the purpose of recreating in the reader a superior, patronizing look (for example, I notice traces of reverse sexism in this forum thread: "the first two chapters are each centred on Yeong-Hye and a male predator, the third is between two women", as if there are two categories: "woman", and "male predator". Is that a vision of equality, for you?). Result: the reader reads and obtains a position of moral superiority. No one engages. In the sense that no reader is being chewed by this book. It's not about YOU, your beliefs, the society you live in and shapes you exactly the same. Nope, it's something far away. Exotic, in a way. Quaint Koreans without morality. Or stuff about society so abstract and pervasive that STILL feels far away instead of personal. (Malazan for example deals with it in much more critical way by making the *victim* unsympathetic, and so forcing on the reader a much more uneasy and unflattering role) The book offers these "male predators", horrible people, as sacrificial scapegoats, so that you see how terrible they are, and feel yourself a better person because you know you aren't like that. Again, no one engages because it's built as if the story is about some barbaric people you read about, from your high seat of moral superiority. It offers the reader the high seat. It's the worse way to deal with the themes this book wants to deal with. Literature whose purpose is to flatter the reader and reinforce complacency is not literature. It's just fraudulence. Abalieno fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 21:37
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Abalieno posted:Some stuff about (1) Eastern exoticism and (2) the safe, haughty superiority of some naive readers to predatory male characters, etc. On the first point about the distancing of those crazy weird Koreans: The characters are portrayed in a more or less modern Western-style light. Is it because they eat bulgogi or something? I mean, it's "exotic" the same way Kafka is exotic or Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled is exotic, and the former wrote in German while the latter is super-English. If anything, the Korean cultural stuff makes the male characters MORE sympathetic and believable. For instance, when the husband is trying to rationalize his wife's behavior, he mentions that her behavior would be rational for Buddhist priests, to lose weight, to "alleviate certain ailments" like indigestion, or to be "possessed by an evil spirit." This kind of list has a touch of the Other about it, but only enough to reinforce the clarity of the husband's thinking. He is the one making sense within his context. His thinking enters a strange tension with the wife's choice -- it makes us want to understand her behavior more. As for the second point about a distanced superior not-Fair and Balanced glance at evil unsympathetic males: The book does a lot of work to give the men's behavior some sense. See above. I get it when the husband says (p. 20): "What the hell? So all because of some ridiculous dream, you've gone and chucked out all the meat? Worth how much?" In the next section, the brother in law grimaces when he realizes that Yeong-hye is in his fantasy. But he is still slave to that fantasy (just as she is slave to her dream), and this intersects with the kind of art he knows he must make. "He spent a long time searching for a solution, for a way to free himself from the hold this image had on him..." That is also comprehensible.
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Jun 30, 2016 22:02
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Abalieno posted:NO ONE identifies with those male characters. Uh, I absolutely do. Identifying with a character does not mean sympathizing with them. I absolutely feel the same sense of male entitlement they feel and the same insecurity of having your masculinity judged by your romantic relationships. I am pretty sure all men feel those things as well. I certainly do not act upon those forces in the same way, but at the same time I am also cognizant of the fact I experience those forces the same as they do. Identifying with a character doesn't mean imagining you are them, it is about finding things in them that you also find in yourself even if they are irredeemably ugly.
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Jun 30, 2016 22:04
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Abalieno posted:The book offers these "male predators", horrible people, as sacrificial scapegoats, so that you see how terrible they are, and feel yourself a better person because you know you aren't like that. Again, no one engages because it's built as if the story is about some barbaric people you read about, from your high seat of moral superiority. It offers the reader the high seat. I think this is a wildly insecure interpretation. You seem afraid to engage with their own selfishness because it might mean admitting you yourself are capable of being selfish. I do not look at these characters and think about how much better I am them. I look at these characters and recognize people who are different from me reacting to the same social forces that I do. You seem to be taking the most superficial possible reading of them. I do not look at these characters so I can say "look how different I am from them, this makes me a good person" I look at them and go "My god, could I be like this too?" You keep saying the lack of morally laudable male characters somehow means we as the reader are supposed to feel superior to them. I think rather you want a morally laudable male character so that you are not forced to confront your own capability for selfishness and immorality. It's like how every movie about racism in America needs a "good" white person so that white audiences don't feel alienated. This novel doesn't reaffirm my masculine ethos; it challenges it, and I am grateful for that. Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 22:38
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Surely it's not necessary to identify with a character to be successful. It's a very solipsistic view that in order to gain understanding or insight one has to take that person's viewpoint. That's part of the joy of this book - the viewpoint shifts around, each offering a new vision of a single person's journey. A kind of stretched Rashomon. Was the family so unreal and amplified that they were unbelievable? I'm not so sure. Certain aspects were amplified to draw out some unpleasant features of the male psyche, but the family was sufficiently normal to provoke shock at their reaction to a somewhat benign and trivial move to stop eating meat. We can read into it of course that they were not reacting to becoming vegetarian, but to the refusal to accept husband/father instruction. If you think this is unreal, just have a look at a prominent feminist's twitter feed.
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Jun 30, 2016 22:49
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