All The Sneaky Ones Part 5: Rules of Attraction

Once again I have diverged from the consensus cloud. But here is my question. Why are we asking a cloud what to read? My advice is, if you want to know what to read, don't ask a cloud. When else would you get advice from a cloud??

Well, maybe I would have been better off following the advice of the cloud and not reading this book. I found it deeply disturbing. It was just a bunch of overprivileged college kids at the fictional Camden College who were deeply unhappy and trying to find some semblance of meaning in drugs and casual sex. They hardly ever went to class. And no-one seemed to do any study. Issues like suicide and attempted suicide were treated flippantly, part of the group self-destruction. And it changed perspectives, so it was hard to know what was real.

It occurred to me that students today at the college that Camden College is based on, Bennington, would reference this book – or at least another by Bret Easton Ellis – and feel literary and worldly and superior while they got completely drugfucked.

The irony of this served only to depress me further.

I read it really fast, in part because I was so wrapped up in this world and it was slightly addictive, but also because I wanted to finish it and be done with it.

But the day after I finished it, this strange thing happened. I felt bereft. I actually missed it. The ending felt unresolved, and I wanted to know what would happen with these poor souls.

I guess that’s the mark of a good book.

I would recommend Rules of Attraction if, like me, you’re a bit squeamish for the brutality of American Psycho.

Retrospective Read: Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night

I read this book ages ago, maybe even when I was in high school. I think I read it before I knew I had Asperger's.

This book came out around the beginning of Asperger's consciousness, and was held up as a prototypical example of Asperger's. This is problematic on two levels: one, it is meaningless to hold up individual examples as prototypical, because people are different and no-one is the Aspie Postergirl/boy. Two, the kid in Curious Incident is more on the autism side of things than Asperger's. I don't remember much from the book but I remember getting frustrated about that.

Another thing I remember about it is that when the boy gets overloaded he tunes the radio into white noise and listens to it. I've never had to desire to do that, but I fully understand it. If all around you is noise, but you know there is meaning you are supposed to be getting from the noise, to listen to continuous meaningless noise can be soothing, a way of asserting control.

I'm trying to think of what I do that's like this. Oh yes! I tune the radio station to a channel where they're speaking a language I don't understand. That way I can enjoy the cadence of speech while resting the part of my brain that interprets language. It's like music.

Should everyone read The Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night? I don't think so. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, really, let along everyone. And keep in mind that if you read it and come away considering yourself an expert on Asperger's, I may very well stab you.

Anthem

Anthem - Ayn Rand

To continue in the tradition of reading non-list books I read Anthem by Ayn Rand.
The reason I chose this book is that Atlas Shrugged by Rand is on the list and Sandra has a copy but she seemed to suggest I might struggle to read it. Perhaps because of the philosophies contained within? So I decided to have a go at Anthem which seemed short and manageable.
It was interesting to read a dystopian novel that was coming from a quite different angle. I generally think of dystopian fiction as being written by left-leaning individuals, and I have a feeling Ayn Rand is a poster-theorist for the American Right so that definitely biased my reading Anthem as anti-communism and pro-capitalism despite being written well before the Cold War. 
There are a number of issues in Brave New World* similar to those in Anthem which makes me wonder if perhaps not all...** actually I recall that Brave New World is more like capitalism taken to its extreme but the end result is much the same. Perhaps there is a lesson in that.

In terms of the actual book, I was flabbergasted at the lack of sexism - men and women were raised separately to do their jobs, neither were demeaned as more or less important and the main character, Equality 7-2521, was portrayed as being disgusted at the way in which they procreate, rather than the anonymous sex being enjoyable to him but wanting to protect "the Golden One" from being defiled.

[spoilers below]

Once Equality 7-2521 and the Golden One run off into the forest it becomes a little more male-dominated as Equality makes all the decisions - he is the one who reads the books while the Golden One stares in the mirror.
Earlier in the book they had both committed acts of rebellion by naming each other (The Golden One and The Unconquered) however after his reading Equality gives himself his own name, which is a necessary act of rebellion however the Golden One is not afforded the same opportunity to rebel against her state-sanctioned name as Equality names her himself.

There are too many subjugated women in the world for this to really feel like freedom for her to me. It grated against me and I felt like she was simply moving from tyranny to a patriarchy. It would have fitted better with the rest of the narrative to have each of them adopt the name given to them by the other in an act of submission and love to each other, or to each choose their own names in a rebellious act of freedom.

I do think that everyone should read this book. It is short and easy and, despite a decided propaganda fell to it, it is important for people to understand the importance of fighting against bad policies and social movements. Rand and I might disagree*** on what those are, but I believe we both believe in the importance of fighting them!

Jocelyn

Endnote: This book would have been better in a language that distinguished between you(singular) and you(plural) and I imagine it would translate very badly into a language that doesn't distinguish between I and we - are there any such languages?

*Which I appear not to have posted about despite having read it and it being an actual list book!!
** The end of that thought follows: ...perhaps not all dystopian authors are left leaning as I had previously suspected.
***She died almost exactly 3 years before I was born, so it isn't something we've discussed over tea or bourbon.

Persuasion

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Jane Austen sure is the bomb at writing Hateful characters. Previously I read Mansfield Park and I pretty much didn't like anyone in that. Even Edmund - the best of the lot - is sometimes manipulative to Fanny. But this is a review of Persuasion.

I pretty much agree with what Cecelia said about Anne's sister Mary, she is whiny and disagreeable. Very frustrating.
Austen's heroines often seem to be stuck in disagreeable families. Lizzy Bennett seems almost fortunate to have a sister-confidant AND a caring father when compared with the likes of Fanny Price and Anne Elliot. It kinda makes me wonder what Austen's family was like!

I had a little trouble getting into Persuasion because at the beginning it was all "Anne is old and has no suiters and people pretty well mistreat her plus her family are proud spendthrifts".
I actually had to call Cecelia and ask why I should proceed.

[spoiler alert]

She asked if I was up to the bit where they go visit Wentworth's navy friend. Which gave me something to look forward to, but also threw me off the scent. I was sure Anne would end up with Captain Benwick. He did seem so very suitable. But I guess you never really get over your first love.

I did like that Charles' family were bummed that he married Mary not Anne.


I don't really think that everyone should read this, but it was a pretty quick read. Although I would recommend reading a couple of the other more amenable Austen's beforehand, because it takes a bit to get into the swing of things and understanding some of the cultural norms of the time. Such as I believe it was pretty non-kosher for a single man to leave a letter to a single woman.

All the Sneaky Ones Part 3

Time for another female author! Today’s sneaky book review is Bossypants, by Tina Fey.

I have been wanting to read this book for a while, based on Sally’s review of it. When I visited the lovely Erin the other day, she was talking about it and ended up loaning it to me. “I told Caitlin she could borrow it, but you’re a quick reader, so you can have it,” Ez said. Challenge accepted! I thought. I finished it last night, a few days shy of two weeks after she gave it to me. Not too bad, considering it’s pretty long and I started uni this week.

I liked Bossypants. I don’t think everyone should read it, and I didn’t find it as funny as Sally said it was. Maybe it’s because she’s American and the humour is slightly different. It was funny, don’t get me wrong, but it just wasn’t side-splittingly funny.

Ez warned me the writing wasn’t that good, and I found her assessment to be true. It wasn’t up to the literary style I’m used to reading. I think it’s because she’s a script-writer, but it seemed more like a written-down speech rather than a piece of writing that embraced the book-form. I really can’t articulate it any better than that. I think I’m going to go away and think more about what I mean by this, because right now I have no idea.

Tina Fey identifies as a feminist, but I think she has the problem feminists of her class and race have been accused of since they started protesting back at the turn of the 18^th/19^th century: “women’s equality” for her means “women like me who struggle with the same issues as me”. I don’t know if I’m being unfair on Fey, or hypocritical because my feminism probably has the same fault, but it’s just the impression that I get. She is also deeply entrenched in the American capitalist cultural model. And her references to feminism weren’t really supported by any kind of theoretical background.

Let me backtrack a bit. Tina Fey does make reference to some intersectional class and race issues, briefly. And also, Bossypants is not a feminist text; it’s the memoir of a woman, who counts feminism as a part of her identity.

If I met Tina Fey, would I like her (based on her book)? I don’t know. I think I would enjoy talking to her. She’s ambitious and awkward and a feminist, all traits that I share. But there were certain parts of the book that I felt uncomfortable with. Like when she kind of screwed over a co-worker. There are other examples but I can’t remember them.

I’ve just figured out what it is that makes me uncomfortable. Fey just seemed to not want to fight for institutional change. Instead of protesting at sexist attitudes in the entertainment industry, she recommends that women get jobs in the area and hire diverse women. When bemoaning that because she works long hours she can’t see her daughter as much as she wants, she doesn’t suggest a change to workplace structure, but rather says she just has to suck it up because people rely on her for their jobs, and there are positives and negatives to both being a working mother and being a stay-at-home ‘Mom’.

I enjoyed Bossypants. It was light and entertaining reading. But I don’t think everyone should read it.

All the Sneaky Ones Part 2

I have posted here about my rebellion against the book list and decision to write about the sneaky alternatives I have been reading.

Number two on my haphazard sneaky book list is Holding the Man. I borrowed this book from my Aunt back in September when I was on a queer theory hunt. It misses the mark, but it’s still a story about gay men so it’s close.

Holding the Man is the autobiographical account of Timothy Conigrave. He details the story of his childhood and adolescence as a young gay person in 1970s Melbourne, his great love with first boyfriend John, and the eventual decline of both of them as they struggle with AIDS.

I really enjoyed the first part of this book. In the 1970s homosexuality was not something that was talked about much, and though a lot of the same prejudices are around today, it is more acceptable now for same-sex couples to hold hands in public, for example. I always like reading stories that are set in Melbourne, and to have a perspective from a past era, with a perspective I hadn’t considered, was insightful.

I also learned more than I had ever imagined about gay men sex. There is so much more to it than I had previously thought. I won’t go into details here, but as in my previous post, if you want to know what the homos (men) are doing, check out Holding the Man. As well as the actual sex, I discovered that there is a lot of sexual play between adolescent boys. This I learned from the book and subsequently from discussions with friends.

This probably sounds really callous, but once the AIDS segment of the book started, it got kind of boring and tedious. I hate reading novels where I am literally waiting for characters to die. The medical jargon loses me and there is no plot or character development.

Another problem with Holding the Man was the two main characters, the writer/protagonist and his lover John. There was very little characterisation. The only description he ever gives of John is that he has beautiful brown eyes and luscious eyelashes. We learn nothing about what it is that attracts Tim to John’s personality, apart from the fact that he loves Tim unconditionally. As for Tim, I feel like if I met him (which I can’t now, because he died 6 months after the book was finished) I wouldn’t like him. He was just kind of annoying and whiny. Especially as a grown man, he just seemed like a stereotype of a flamboyant gay man. I liked him better as a teenager.

Should everyone read this book? I think everyone should read the first part.

And one more thing: I’d just like to note that in all 113 books on the book list, not one of them is at all queer (as far as I can tell, I haven’t actually read them all). Only Dorian Gray (see also here) has homo-erotic undertones.

All the Sneaky Ones Part 1

There must be a word for this: a specific form of procrastination where you do something you’ve been putting off in order not to do something else you’re putting off. For example, a friend of mine went to Centrelink and got a healthcare card, something she had been meaning to do for months, as soon as she had to write a 4000-word essay.

This effect has played out on me in the last few months since we started book challenge. Once I had a whole list of books I had to read, I was suddenly desperate to brush the dust off the stack of books on my bedside table and devour them. So, in the spirit of rebellion against this book list, I am going to pen a few reviews of the books I’ve been reading while studiously ignoring the ‘have to’ books.

First off: Girl Walking Backwards, a YA novel I read in December when Dracula got too scary/monotonous. I wouldn’t say this is a book everyone should read. I’m not even sure I should have read it. It’s the story of a fairly disturbed 16- or 17-year-old girl living in Southern California, who is coming to terms with her sexuality, her history, and her place in the world. As the title suggests, the book meanders along, not going anywhere in particular. It had the classic first-novel fault of not knowing where/how to finish, the result being that the last quarter of the novel resembled that sandwich you left in your bag for a week which, though once delicious, is now just mush.

But what this book lacks in plot it makes up for in scandalous and daring content. I kind of wish I had read this book when I was in high school. It certainly would have opened up my mind more than the hundreds of samey YA books I tore through. One of these aspects is sexuality. The protagonist, Skye, is bisexual-identified but to my mind she seemed much more like a lesbian. I feel really embarrassed about this, but I think I’ve only read one or two other novels that are from a first-person lesbian perspective. I thought it was interesting, and radical, the way she looked at and talked about, other women, kind of objectifying but in less of an aggressive male-gaze manner. It opened my mind to new modes and concepts of lesbianism.

This book was also radical about sex. There was a lot of sex in Girl Walking Backwards; none of it, not even the heterosexual sex, is “penis in vagina” (PIV) sex. At the start of the book Skye has a boyfriend, Riley, with whom she has what she terms “our version of sex”. This includes masturbating together and cunnilingus. Later in the book, [SPOILER] Riley cheats on Skye with a girl she has a crush on by giving the girl cunnilingus in a bathroom. [END SPOILER]. There is also some detailed lesbian sex, so if you’re still wondering at this stage in life (whatever that stage is, I don’t know you so I’m not judging) how people have sex when there’s no penis, then maybe you should read this book and find out. Or just google it, I don’t know.

Girl Walking Backwards also had some intense themes: drugs, abuse, abandonment, witchcraft, new age cults. It was written in the 90s, so I don’t know, maybe YA books were a bit edgier than they were ten years later when I was a teen. It was good to see some of this content, but I didn’t like how it was dealt with. It was pretty dark and just made me feel down. I like it when books can go to the dark places but not leave you there.

Finally, it is worth noting that Girl Walking Backwards, unlike 75%+ of the consensus cloud book list, is written by a woman. Grrrrl power, yeah!