#problematic books

[eowynn-bagels]

What I read in September

September was a crazy-ass month. Lizzy kicked the bucket, Don't Worry Darling crashed and burned, and most important, I read a ton of movies.

1. All The Light We Cannot See

All The Light We Cannot see might just be my book of the year. As I already talked about this in a previous post, I'll make this quick. All The Light We Cannot See has been described, and rightfully so, as a modern classic. Its unique presentation of its story and masterful management of story threads that sew together Werner and Marie-Laure through their childhood years and the present have cemented it into its position as one of the best books of the 2010s.

Final Verdict: 9.5/10 - Absolute perfection

2. Never Let Me Go

The second book I read in September was Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. This is my third Ishiguro book, and I have to say - he is a brilliant author. The way he slowly draws you into the mystery of Hailsham, and how it's drip-fed to the reader what Hailsham's true purpose was for, despite the parallel storyline running in the modern day, it never gives away what they're doing, just that Kathy is a 'carer'.

I also went into the book blind, having no idea what it was about. I didn't read a synopsis, I didn't skim it, I just sat down and finished it in one sitting. Never Let Me Go is a masterclass in exposition and the flow of information to the audience. It treats the reader as if they too exist within the world of Never Let Me Go and it works incredibly well. The way it handles its themes, story and characters could not have come from anyone other than Kazuo Ishiguro.

Final Verdict: 8.5/10 - Read it blind!

3. Grand Hotel Europa

TW: Sexual assault

Then, I read Grand Hotel Europa, and it is a letdown. I bought it because it shares a similar title and seemed to share a similar story to one of my favorite Wes Anderson movies - The Grand Budapest Hotel. What I got instead was one pretty good metaphor about Europe, a useless, filler storyline that takes up 2/3rds of the book's material, and a really weird sex scene in which the author has with a 18 year old girl.

What you need to know about Grand Hotel Europa is that it is written as a true story, the author - Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer (one hell of a name) - presents the story as something that actually happened to him (down to the author's name and background). Sure, it's unique, but what makes it concerning is the aforementioned weird sex scene. The girl, Memphis, grew up in an abusive household where she was sexually assaulted. She was then adopted by rich parents and eventually ends up in the Grand Hotel Europa, the main setting and namesake of the book.

After they have sex, and Pfeijffer describes it in awkwardly high detail, she tells him to 'use her real name'. Even if this is fiction, it reads like some bizarre author self-insert fanfic, written as an excuse to jerk off, and somehow made it past rewriting, editing, publishing and translation. Outside of the Murakami-esque sex scenes, it isn't all that compelling. Like I said, the storyline about Clio and the lost Caravaggio painting is intensely boring. The only positive thing about this book is the book's namesake, the Grand Hotel Europa, which works pretty well as a metaphor for Europe in an ever-evolving world, and singlehandedly keeps this from being a 1/10.

Final Verdict: 4/10 - Murakami-esque, but without the good prose

4. Outline

Outline is the first novel in Rachel Cusk's Outline trilogy. I don't really have any strong feelings about it. Despite rave reviews, I don't feel like it says that much or wants to say that much, for that matter. Outline is an interesting, short-ish story about a woman who comes to Greece to teach a writing class, and in doing so meets several other people, who through conversation, are revealed. In the process, we also learn about the main character.

It is elegant and contains some great prose, but offers not much food for thought or discussion, not anything to write home about. Perhaps I need to read the next two books in the trilogy to understand it.

Final Verdict: 6.5/10 - Boring but not in the 'classical literature' way.

5. The Iliad

I also read The Iliad and it is a slog, but in an interesting way. The Iliad tells the story of the siege of Troy, one of the penultimate events during the Trojan War. It is also one of the oldest pieces of literature in the world that's still widely read, clocking in at around 2700 to 2800 years old. It moves like a giant, slow but immense in its proportions. Every chapter intensifies the stakes and every character is given their own motivations.

It's hard to talk about The Iliad without also talking about the censorship of Achilles and Patroclus' relationship. In my edition of the book, published in the 50s, they are referred to as 'companions', and to drive the point home, both take on trophy women. The translators are so insistent that both are straight that there are even addendums in parts where it's made explicitly clear that Achilles and Patroclus are fruity that say, in a nutshell: 'No homo, they're just the best of friends. Guy pals.' However, in modern depictions, most notably Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles, where Achilles and Patroclus' relationship is the main focus of the book, the story works remarkably better. Achilles turning to rage and accepting his fate after Patroclus dies works so much better when you know that they loved each other. It becomes even more of a tragedy than it already is.

The Iliad is an epic that has come to define classical literature, and will continue to stand as the quintessential epic. With themes of fate, love, time and hubris, it stands as one of humanity's greatest achievements.

Final Verdict: 9/10 - Achilles and his ''''Friend''''

[sir-klauz]

Sorry but being so adamant that nobody can every write about anything ever in their books that isn’t basically PG or 100% purely nothing included that’s a difficult topic is terribly boring, terribly so far flung from reality, and if you do want fiction, then removing fantasy that might include difficult topics pretty much also participates in pretending it doesn’t exist and it shouldn’t be a problem to write about.

Sure, add trigger warnings and avoid things that negatively affect you and hurt you to read, but saying the writer is evil for including them or is problematic unless they themselves are expressing actually being their character they’re writing about and being a bigot, someone like JK Rowling for an easy example presenting as a bigot and writing alongside as one within her material.

It’s a bit much to put someone who’s say, writing about perhaps a homophobic crime occurring to a character/being bullied and then coining them as problematic themselves for even writing about that and “probably a homophobe themselves” and reducing writers not at all like that to this when it’s not even true.

These things, bad things, villains, and more, as bad as they are, need to be written about sometimes because often characters are Based On Real People, or have elements or depictions of real experiences, and stories need a variety of people because you won’t find many books without a selection of good and bad characters, even in fluffy kids books.

Now, how it’s written, how a realistic negative event is written, if it’s informed or written insensitivity or perhaps a warning and things alike, criticise that instead.

But to suddenly cancel a writer and complain about them and reducing their entire capacity as a writer all for their characters having difficult experiences in a book, or evil characters being present… I mean come on, do you really expect they entirety of literature now needs to only have Heroes. How bland.

And I’m not saying books like that aren’t bad, I love a good warm and lovely book, but I mean if that’s the only genre and writing style there ever was whilst trying to reach this false idea of perfection or purity as a writer apparently needs to be producing or god forbid?

Gimme a breakkk, I know you read several Steven King novels in your teens. Wouldn’t call that slasher movie non-problematic either but you still go watch them on horror night and don’t criticise the creator as “evidently politically siding with Jason Voorhees”, because it’s a fookin horror movie innit.

Don’t consume genres you don’t like that have clear warnings with material in it that you don’t enjoy. It doesn’t make a writer evil for writing about not so fluffy things, what’s important is how it’s done, that it’s not for an undertone of the writers true beliefs, and that they’re been careful to write it well. Be critical, call out discriminatory writing that is coming from the writer, call out if the writing is making minorities suffer from its production, but keep in mind a writer isn’t also a bigot because there’s characters within their work that are. Just like they’re probably also not the banking entrepreneur that swipes a random fashion column writer off their feet on a summers day in New York in their second book.

I mean maybe they are and I guess kudos for having that much time on their hands to be a banker, successful writer and hamming it with a great romantic life as well whilst catching a day with nice weather.

[sanguinifex]

You gotta read and watch some old books and films that aren’t 100% modern politically correct. I’m not saying you should agree with everything in them but you need to learn where genres came from to understand what those genres are doing today and where media deconstructing old tropes is coming from.

Also, more often than you might think, they’re not actually promoting bigotry so much as “didn’t consider all the implications of something” or just used words that were polite then but considered offensive now.

Kill the censor in your head.

[teaboot]

When I was a kid, I regularly lost reading privileges for "having an attitude" and "acting out".

It wasn't as simple as being told not to read during other activities- one of the first times it happened, I remember being six years old, watching my stepfather pull fistfuls of books off my bookshelf and throw them to the floor in a heaping mess while I cried and asked him to stop.

It was weird. Every other adult I knew described me as exceptionally well-behaved, but at home, it was the opposite, and it was blamed on "learning bad habits from that shit you're reading".

Because I couldn't read at home, I spent all my free time at school in the library, reading with my friends.

When I grew up and moved away, I realized that my family life was toxic and abusive, and the "attitudes" I was being punished for were standing up for myself, standing up for my younger siblings, and resisting actual, real-life psychological abuse. Because I'd learned from what I'd read that my family wasn't normal, not like my parents said it was, and in my stories, the heroes were the people who spoke out when it was hard to.

It is insane to me that there are students right now who can't access books. It is insane that books are being outlawed. It is perverse that we are stealing away an entire generation's ability to contextualize their lives, to learn about the world around them, to develop critical thinking skills and express themselves and feel connected to the world or escape from it, whatever and whenever and however they need.

That is not how you raise a compassionate, thoughtful, powerful society.

That's how you process cattle.

It's fucking disgusting.

[supermanandlois3]

You never read the book you have no right to have an opinion!

[lilareviewsbooks]

Please await my scathing review of Senlin Ascends in which I will be discussing the not-talked-about student-teacher romance and why I think it’s gross. As is the case with all student-teacher romances.

[vforvalensa]

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer shoulda been adapted as a 90s point and click adventure game instead of the Natalie Portman movie.

[ripeteeth]

bloodstains on blorbos and bruises on bottoms,

twenty-year age gap and tentacle cock come,

sobbing meowmeows all tied up with strings,

these are a few of my favorite things.

i’m writing a love song for problematic tropes

[hg-aneh]

I think it was about time I introduced tumblr to my book Crowley... who eventually became a walking love letter to Latino culture lmao

(You can think of him as a Book Crowley who spent way too much time in south america)

Language wise, he's an amalgamation of all latin american spanish dialects (+pt-br) so,, have fun translating some of the things he's saying

[elizareed]

every day I log onto tumblr dot com and I have to see people claiming charlotte bronte wasn't a feminist unlike their totally unproblematic fave jane austen and I am physically unable to grab them by the shoulders and giving them a good shake and it makes me real sad

[shortnotsweet]

ONCE UPON A TIME, in a land lost to us now, there was a time of peace that gave way to great anguish. The former queen had committed a stark betrayal for which she hoped to be forgiven. But her stepdaughter, who feared neither fire nor blood nor death, could not bring herself to overlook the defense. The stepdaughter was the rightful heir and a queen in her own right, and for too long was she denied her inheritance. Rhaenyra Targaryen’s second son was dead. Her men would raise her banner.

[retellingthehobbit]

(Link here) Picture me with a conspiracy stringboard, a copy of the Unfinished Tales, and several essays about how LOTR/The Hobbit are meant to be flawed translations of ancient texts written by biased authors, and gesturing wildly as I explain how we can reinterpret The Hobbit as a funky little gay metaphor actually. we can do it. I believe

[aleksanderscult]

Leigh Bardugo should become universally criticized just for the fact that she presented a victim of persecution and his actions as worse and more important to deal with than the genocide that takes place in that world.

She really said: "It's not the genocide we should worry about. It's that man and his efforts to stop it".

And people applaud her for it instead. Wow. You're all seriously fucked up.

[juiche]

Inspired by Way Down We Go by @xiaq 🪄

Draco and Harry found a way to snuggle together while remaining as clueless, platonic best bros and it's a bit hilarious and very sweet, so I had to draw it :)

[samijey]

WWE's Bash in Berlin, 2024

some really multi-layered acting from Kevin here that we haven't gotten to see in a while and I absolutely love: starting with the restless look when he's first clinging to Cody, slight conflict still clear in his body language. then Cody firmly pats him on the back twice, and that smallest bit of violence (the thing which fuels so much of who KO is as a wrestling character), seems to provide either a distraction or a relief from the indecision. we see Kevin's stare move a thousand miles away, until he remembers there's a camera in his face capturing a rare moment of vulnerability and his brow instantly turns in anger as he shoves it away, breaking the moment for both himself and the prying viewer Kevin Owens may never win the war against his impulse to turn on those close to him, but he's won the latest battle and that might be enough for now

[blujaymi]

hello again locked tomb fandom. read the masquerade series by seth dickinson pretty pleaseee :'))