Canadian human rights lawyer Marcus McCann ponders legal regulations regarding sex between consenting adults, and how sex-negative moral standpoints cCanadian human rights lawyer Marcus McCann ponders legal regulations regarding sex between consenting adults, and how sex-negative moral standpoints cause morally motivated policing (rather than policing that actually protects citizens, especially minorities). His main example, as the title indicates: Gay men cruising in parks. We all remember the scandal around singer George Michael, who was arrested and publicly shamed for his cruising activities - but he refused to feel responsible for other people's moral indignation about his private behaviors and instead turned the whole incident into this iconic masterpiece. McCann's book is legally supported activism that revolves around this whole point: He questions what harm might actually be done, and what might be the individual and social benefits of gay cruising, bath houses, sex clubs etc.
McCann particularly talks about safety issues, about consent and health, about questions of class, gender and sexual orientation. He also illustrates the history of public sex and how today's police activities (in Canada) miss the mark when it comes to actually increasing safety and justice.
So sure, the whole book aims to support McCann's convictions, and he also states that cruising is apparently a controversial issue in the gay community, but I have to admit that I've never heard anyone argue from his standpoint, especially supported with legal arguments, so for me, this was very informative and it broadened my perspective. It also made me question many aspects of the law's approach towards regulating sexuality, especially as legal norms are nothing but moral convictions written down by the people's representatives and interpreted by legal professionals. Who do we as a society want to protect, and from what?...more
Rachel Cusk doing Rachel Cusk things: In "Parade", she once more focuses on the female experience in society and particularly the art world, and whileRachel Cusk doing Rachel Cusk things: In "Parade", she once more focuses on the female experience in society and particularly the art world, and while she started her experimental journey by introducing the annihilated female perspective (meaning a type of narration that only reflects the narrator through the voice of others), she now just blows apart the idea of a coherent narrative altogether, somewhat miraculously proving that we never needed it anyway. And if you now think, well, postmodern fiction doesn't rely on plot anyway, you're correct, but Cusk gets rid of a concise plot AND of characters: Don't even try to make sense of the cast here, these people are shapeshifters, especially the ghost-like, genderfluid artist G, a collective of people that haunts the pages.
Split in four interconnected parts, the individual sections also remain somewhat enclosed, while within the parts, narrative arcs are entangled, jumping without warning between paragraphs like a cut-up operation (so in case you belong to the tribe who start whining when an author does not use quotation marks because you claim that's super confusing, don't even bother with Cusk). Sure, it's possible to google the hints (I love this puzzle-like aspect of Cusk's work!) and identify iterations of G, like Georg Baselitz (who painted upside-down images), Louise Bourgeois (who created gigantic spiders), Norman Lewis (the Black artist who painted a cathedral), Éric Rohmer (a Nouvelle Vague director with a pseudonym) etc. pp. But while this is great fun, they all serve as means to craft a philosophical novel about female creation, female representation and the types of fragile bonds that connect humans. Apparently, Cusk has also added some personal experience, per usual (e.g., she was really assaulted on the streets of Paris). Discussing this novel is all about reading into the intellectually charged descriptions contained in the vignettes that the author presents us with.
It also means to marvel at the fact that Cusk seems to become more and more artistically radical, a master non-storyteller that has no fucks to give about convention, and she can afford this because she is in full control of her prose: Nothing about this text should work, yet it does work perfectly. More power to that woman, who seeems to ponder the shapeshifter in all of us: It's no coincidence that in the end, the first-person narration suddenly changes into "we".
I should just stop reading thrillers, it's not my genre, and the twist in this one was already done so often, and in one case, so well and with so mucI should just stop reading thrillers, it's not my genre, and the twist in this one was already done so often, and in one case, so well and with so much layered social commentary added to it ((view spoiler)[
Fight Club(hide spoiler)]) that it would require way more than what Reid offers to keep me interested. Here, we meet a young couple on their way to meet the guy's parents, while the girlfriend has already mentally checked out of the relationship. We start out with a chamber play in a moving car, then a creepy dinner with the parents, then a car entendre, then a reveal in the man's old school.
The themes that are tackled include mental illness and loneliness / the inability to connect to others, so this could make for an interesting read in the field of psychological horror, but I was mainly bored out of my mind: The lengthy ruminations were just not that deep or interesting. I checked out the movie to see whether it improves the story, but it's actually kind of worse - not even the perpetually underrated and pretty amazing Jesse Plemons could save it.
Not for me, and frankly, I should have known....more
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2023 Listen, I get VERY skeptical when a text is compared to Kafka's work, because in my not-so-humble opinion, FranzShortlisted for the Booker Prize 2023 Listen, I get VERY skeptical when a text is compared to Kafka's work, because in my not-so-humble opinion, Franz Fucking Kafka is the best German-language author who has ever graced the world with his ideas, thank you very much (yes, you heard that right, Wolle Goethe). But while Bernstein of course cannot touch the master for whom an eternal light is shining in the cathedral of my heart, I understand why people see a connection between the Canadian poet and Franzel the Great: Bernstein finds abysmally dark and haunting images to illustrate the absurd nature of humankind, and her protagonist is so psychologically deformed by what has been written into her, so the character she has developed under internal and external pressure, that the almost non-existent plot still reads like a horror story about a woman whose brain has been poisoned by internalized cruelty.
Our narrator and protagonist, an unnamed Jewish woman, has learnt all her life that her worth is measured by the title-giving obedience, that she as a woman is a projection surface and tool for the comfort of others. Now, as an adult, she moves to live with her recently divorced brother, who resides in an unnamed country that was involved in the Holocaust (it's probably Romania, because we do have the mythical sheepdog, but it's a Carpathian one). The family used to live at the place before the terrible events that are never specified happened, and now the protagonist is ostracized by a society whose language she doesn't speak, no matter her roots. When the brother comes back from traveling, he falls ill...
This novella heavily relies on atmosphere, partly to its detriment, because it tends to be very descriptive and to meander off into different directions. What I applaud though is that this text is daring, not only in its scenes, but also when it comes to the language: To me, it felt like a translated text, like the rhythm the words develop is not that of English - and I mean that as a compliment, because the effect isn't that of clumsiness, but of alienation, of looking through a lense, and this underlines the message, namely that we encounter a narrator that struggles with internalized hate and sees the world through a specific veil, often tending to accept cruelty because there is no energy, no self-love left to resist: She does not "live in her life". She has disappeared, been murdered from the inside, struck by "permanent although latent terror".
Bernstein also delivers some brutal lines with immense power. Take this one sentence horror story, for example: "I recalled my own aborted attempts at intimacy, with men, with women, and all that I had ever come away with was a sense of my essential interchangeability." - welcome to the pits of hell. Or this one, reminding me of my favorite Kafka story, In the Penal Colony: "I was caught in the machinery of certain manias and maladies, the engines of their compulsory performace urging me on." - wow, just wow.
Still, I was overall bothered by the author's tendency to meander and the long descriptive passages, which throw off the pacing. I'm happy this one got nominated though, because it has drive and unusual ideas, two things that most of this Booker longlist have been tragically lacking.
Now THAT would be an interesting Canadian contender for the Booker: In his autofictional debut novel, queer Cree poet Belcourt ponders the prisons we Now THAT would be an interesting Canadian contender for the Booker: In his autofictional debut novel, queer Cree poet Belcourt ponders the prisons we live in. The unnamed twenty-something narrator takes a break from finishing his doctoral thesis to travel from his new scholarly world in Northern Alberta back to the surroundings of his youth on the rez, thus turning from theory back to the practicalities of indigenous survival. The text is mainly made up of conversations turned into stories that reflect the lives of both the narrator and the people he talks to (the title-giving chorus where, to say it with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, the subaltern speak), and the whole book is framed and haunted by the narrator's memories of his cousin Jack who, traumatized by police brutality, has turned to drugs.
This is a very smart novel about indigenous survival in a settler society, the effects of intergenerational trauma and the injustices indigenous communities are still facing today. Belcourt investigates these questions - as well as queer identity - by illuminating the destinies of several individuals that have their own individuality and dignity while also standing pars pro toto for larger societal issues, like the marginalization of non-white scholars in white spaces or self-harming survival tactics of groups marginalized by the reigning power. I really admired the captivating, individual storylines that so well serve to tell the narrator's story by seemingly not doing so (hello, Rachel Cusk).
The language is highly elegant and showcases the award winning poet's talent, while not being overly lyrical (a tendency that often overburdens novels written by poets) - instead, the intense precision of the descriptions and emotional movements really draw readers into the text.
Now Shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2024 Donoghue takes us to the 7th century to tell a story about radicalization and fanaticism: In a dreamNow Shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2024 Donoghue takes us to the 7th century to tell a story about radicalization and fanaticism: In a dream, the famous Irish sage Brother Artt has a vision in which God tells him to take two monks, middle-aged Brother Cormac and young Brother Trian, to an uninhabited island in the Atlantic Ocean in order to turn it into a bastion of God. The three travel to Skellig Michael, shown on the front cover of the novel (the island really holds a monastery which is a UNESCO World Heritage, but its history differs from the fictional version in the book). There, prior Artt requires his two monks to perform more and more unpractical, illogical, and dangerous acts to honor God at the expense of their own well-being and, ultimately, survival.
The text is a claustrophic chamber play about the perversion of faith, about fanaticism (and to me, strangely reminiscent of Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas, which deals with a wannabe cult leader that goes insane and is an allegory on German fascism). Practical Cormac became a monk late in life after the plague killed his family, younger Trian was given to the monastery as a child and carries a secret that, when it gets revealed, is the catalyst for the finale (although it remains a mystery to me why the author chose exactly that to be his secret - it feels like she just hints at very current debates that do not convincingly relate to the story). The two monks are fantastically rendered characters, their prior and his motivations remain somewhat enigmatic though.
All in all, this novel is atmospheric and beautifully written, but it does not have all that much to say: Fanaticism = bad. Although it's relatively short, it still feels too long. This should have been a novella or a short story....more
A novel about delusions of grandeur, and their deathly consequences: At JFK airport, the unnamed narrator, a writer, meets a former UCLA classmate whoA novel about delusions of grandeur, and their deathly consequences: At JFK airport, the unnamed narrator, a writer, meets a former UCLA classmate who invites him to the first class lounge and feels compelled to tell him his life story. This sets in motion the story-within-a-story structure, in which we learn that the classmate, Jeff, has saved a man's life (via mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but the book title of course also refers to oral storytelling), and then became obsessed with this very man, aiming to find out what he did with his second chance. Turns out the man is a wealthy art dealer named Francis, and Jeff wiggles his way into his life, becoming his assistant and dating his daughter. But Jeff is not all too pleased with the way Francis spends the part of his life he enabled him to have by saving him...
Yes, there is a "Saw" vibe to it, and I think to call this book, as many reviews did, a "morality tale" is a little too overblown; rather, I enjoyed it for its discussion of megalomania, and I found it rather entertaining. The characters and from some point on the plot are pretty predictable, and if you'd like to read about the art world, the gold standard is still The Map and the Territory. But as a text about manipulation and conceit, this is cleverly done.
A short, fun read, but not overwhelmingly innovative or riveting....more
The ads made this sound like a real romp: A Gwyneth Paltrow-esque actress turned wellness guru called Geia Stone offers a wellness retreat on a Greek The ads made this sound like a real romp: A Gwyneth Paltrow-esque actress turned wellness guru called Geia Stone offers a wellness retreat on a Greek island, and the new lover of her former husband joins to write an article for Vogue. As a fan of Goop-spoof Covetton House, I expected a witty parody or at least discussion of curated hypercapitalism that morphs wellness trends into weapons in the great distinction games - but on the contrary. Protagonist Agnes Oliver, a bestselling author, doubts the enterprise, only to have life-shattering insights in hypnotherapy and to find out about the real, ancient powers of healer Geia Stone. Of course, dear readers: Your troubles will be healed by magic, brought about by exclusive celebrity retreats.
Unfortunately, nothing here is plausible: The whole set-up relies on bizarre incidents (e. g. Agnes thinks of Geia Stone and her former husband, only to have the letter show up right in front of her). The psychology of the characters makes no sense (e. g. Agnes is said to be 30, but has the emotional maturity of a 14-year-old, and her "romance" with the director-ex-husband is grotesque). The inner workings of the story are not shown, but fully told (e. g., Agnes explains her trauma to us, repeatedly and at length, just like the ex-husband, to make sure we know what to think). Bits and pieces are thrown at us, but not really employed for the story (Agnes wrote a story about nature, we are told nature speaks to her, but none of her actions show it; she is said to love the Greek classics, but it's not worked into the text on an aesthetic level).
And then there's the language: Shortish, plain sentences, cringeworthy dialogue (that interview Agnes gives: Platitudes that hurt), none of the stated sensibilities of our narrator recognizable in her narrative voice. The book starts as a Künstlerroman, turns into a love story, a thriller, and then a supernatural tale, and nothing works.
I was really excited to read something more light-hearted and smart, but this was all-over the place, with no consistent creative concept or message. This could have been so much better!...more
Wow, this is by far Shaw's best book - although, let's be honest, I didn't expect much from a criminal psychologist writing about gender and sexualityWow, this is by far Shaw's best book - although, let's be honest, I didn't expect much from a criminal psychologist writing about gender and sexuality. But as it turns out, Shaw, herself bisexual, went deep into the history, science and politics of bisexuality, and crafted a highly interesting text full of studies, stats, historical episodes and personal anecdotes relating to her personal experiences. It's once again pop psychology, but well done, especially as I have to admit that I never really thought much about the lived experiences of bisexual people - now I'm smarter, so thanks, Julia Shaw.
Okay, so this is an award-winning Canadian classic in which a woman has sex with a bear to say things about feminism and settler colonialism. Really. Okay, so this is an award-winning Canadian classic in which a woman has sex with a bear to say things about feminism and settler colonialism. Really. The plot: Lonely archivist Lou moves to a remote house on a Canadian river island to research the documents and catalogue the books of a recently deceased 19th century Colonel after whom the island was named. A tame old bear lives in a shed in the back of the house, Lou falls in love and has sex with the bear.
While there are very realistic descriptions of nature and the bear isn't anthropomorphized, the tale remains (intentionally) illogical and ultimately fable-like with lots of references to myth and literature. Lou, the Colonel and their respective ancestors are depicted as those protecting the heritage of settler colonialism, while the chained, neglected bear, nature, and an indigenous women point to Canadian indigenous history. Plus there is a feminist layer: In flashbacks, we learn that Lou was assaulted by several dangerous men - now she falls for a dangerous animal that was chained and alienated from its natural state: The bear is a victim (which is conveniently overlooked in several interpretations of the book). Aaaand then there are the links to Edward John Trelawny, an apparently rather ruthless man who wrote Recollections Of The Last Days Of Shelley And Byron, portraying the life stories of people for his own gain - and Lou doesn't seem to realize that this man does not only relate to the animalistic nature of the bear, but to herself, the protector of the legacy of settler colonialism (the Colonel was a benefactor of the museum she works for).
So all in all, there is a lot to unpack in this shortish text, but the metaphors remain rather muddled....more
Now Nominated for the PEN AMERICA Open Book Award 2023 Joshua Whitehead, author of the fantastic Jonny Appleseed, is a Two-Spirit, Oji-nêhiyaw member oNow Nominated for the PEN AMERICA Open Book Award 2023 Joshua Whitehead, author of the fantastic Jonny Appleseed, is a Two-Spirit, Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation who holds a PhD in Indigenous Literatrures and Cultures. In this essay collection, he contemplates Indigeneity, queerness, and mental health under settler colonialism in North America. In ten artful texts, Whitehead combines the personal (familial trauma, an eating disorder and sexual assault, e.g.) with the political while challenging standards and definitions as declared by Western academia.
I have always been particularly fascinated by Whitehead's arguments regarding the nature of storytelling and how the physical and the psychological intersect when a story is manifested from a person's mind over their breath into the physical world, where narratives create and change reality. Orality and community building through experiences shared via narrative are a major concern of this collection, which is partly challenging to read when the author merges academic language, Cree expressions, anecdotes and high literature to make complex points about identity and society - but the effort is so worth it. And of course, the land that Indigenous peoples and settlers live on plays an important role in many of the texts.
Whitehead's concept to render the essayistic artful, to craft creative non fiction, is also reflected in the fact that this collection, long before its publication, was the basis of performance art.
Joshua Whitehead's Jonny Appleseed was an extremely important novel for me: It taught me so much and I really loved its wonderful, multi-faceted protagonist. "Making Love with the Land" now appeals to the academic in me, but it does so in an artistic, absorbing way. I hope Whitehead will go on writing for a long time....more
Esi Edugyan of Washington Black fame has pusblished a fantastic collection of essays, intricately crafted by combining personal, historical and scientEsi Edugyan of Washington Black fame has pusblished a fantastic collection of essays, intricately crafted by combining personal, historical and scientific aspects in order to highlight stories and figures that do not feature in the official archives - she wants her readers to see them and thus change their own ideas based on a more complete picture. The book comprises the 2021 Massey Lectures broadcast as part of CBC Radio's "Ideas" series, where Edugyan presented five lectures on identity and belonging, each centering on another region of the world:
Europe and the Art of Seeing starts with the author sitting for her portrait with painter John Hartman and ventures into classic portraiture and how it represents Black people, historically and in contemporary art.
Canada and the Art of Ghosts explores ghost stories as repositories of our pasts - who are the dead we choose to see, who is forgotten?
America and the Art of Emapthy discusses racial passing and transracialism.
Africa and the Art of Future contemplates the importance of origin stories, and how Afrofuturism invents a future on the past that has been destroyed.
Asia and the Art of Storytelling talks about the Black experience in Asia.
All of these essays are captivating, relevant, and very well-written. Read them....more
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021 Mary Lawson gives a lesson in how to craft a story told from three perspectives that also jumps between timelines Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021 Mary Lawson gives a lesson in how to craft a story told from three perspectives that also jumps between timelines - when such a grifted and controlled writer does it, it feels completely effortless. Set in a small town North Ontario in 1972, we first meet seven-year-old Clara whose elder sister has run away; then there's her elderly, frail neighbour Mrs Orchard, who is currently in the hospital; and the last perspective is that of Liam, an accountant in his thirties who lived next to Mrs Orchard when he was a small boy. Of course, they all are connected - but the question how exactly is what drives the narrative, so I won't spoil it. Suffice to say that all characters are drawn with great empathy, their trials and tribulations are portrayed in a convincing and touching manner (especially when it comes to Clara who struggles with the world of the grown-ups around her). All storylines center on love, loss, and longing.
Lawson has complete control over her material and does a great job displaying human emotions in a calm, but intense manner - the comparisons to Anne Tyler are fully justified. But is this Booker material? It's a timeless piece, told in a traditional manner, and there's nothing wrong with that per se, but if the Booker wants to highlight timely material and cutting-edge literary aesthetics, this is not the novel to point out. My guess it that it will be a puzzle piece in a diverse array of texts that the judges want to present this year.
Let's find out and tackle the rest of the longlistees!...more
A book about queer camp(s) - people, we've reached peak pun level! And Joshua Whitehead writes the final essay, and of course it's great great great.A book about queer camp(s) - people, we've reached peak pun level! And Joshua Whitehead writes the final essay, and of course it's great great great....more
Now a Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award 2021 (Fiction) Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021 The unreliable narrator of this novel harbNow a Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award 2021 (Fiction) Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021 The unreliable narrator of this novel harbors a dark secret - but what is it? It's the puzzling nature of the human soul and how it is pondered in this text that renders the book so intriguing. As the story progresses, one wonders more and more what happened to "M", a 50-year-old writer, who lives remotely in the marshes with her down-to-earth, nature-loving husband Tony. She invites a famous painter who is down on his luck to join them in their second humble dwelling (that's the literal meaning of the title, but as this is Cusk, the term "second place" has many more layers), and soon enough, there are four visitors on the grounds, two directly bringing back haunting memories from the past, two mirroring M's fears and insecurities...
Fear is a big topic in this book. Rachel Cusk takes no prisoners when she evokes hallucinatory images and gothic twists that point at a trauma deeply buried in M's consciousness; M wrestles with an overwhelming sense of being treated unjustly, a sense of infuriating helplessness and invisibility as a female literary creator. While her husband Tony "didn't believe in art - he believed in people, (...), in nature", the visiting painter represents reckless creation without any consideration for others (at least at first). In an afterword, Cusk states that the story owes a debt to Lorenzo in Taos, a memoir by Mabel Dodge Luhan about the time D. H. Lawrence visited her in New Mexico, and Cusk sees "Second Place" as a tribute to Luhan's spirit.
"Second Place", much like the Outline-trilogy, is a treasure chest for readers who love labyrinths and puzzles: There is A LOT to find here, ideas, motifs, riddles, images...it's the whole extravaganza, and it's great fun to dive into it. M is the central figure and remains both closest to the reader and furthest away. She tells the whole story to the enigmatic Jeffers - and us, of course, and herein lies her key to freedom: "Language is the only thing capable of stopping the flow of time, because it exists in time, is made of time, yet it is eternal - or can be." By telling her tale, she makes us see her....more
This immersive, fun memoir, told in 46 short chapters alternating between the viewpoints of Tegan and Sara, gives us the story of how the Canadian indThis immersive, fun memoir, told in 46 short chapters alternating between the viewpoints of Tegan and Sara, gives us the story of how the Canadian indie pop twin sensation came into being: After a short set-up we meet the Quin sisters at the start of grade 10 and follow them until their 18th birthday, the day they signed with PolyGram. We hear about their family, the trials and tribulations of high school life, what it means to be a twin, how they discovered and learnt to accept their sexuality (both sisters are gay), and how they started to make music - and while this book addresses serious issues like self-acceptance, drugs, discrimination, bullying and even violence, it's a blast to read all those vignettes and look at the numerous photographs that illustrate the written memories.
Unsurprisingly, the viewpoints of Tegan and Sara do not always align, so their statements are not always congruent, plus the fact that the chapters are crafted like flashlights leads to the effect that things and people appear, disappear, and re-appear without explanation, but that's part of the concept. The memoir also conveys the stories behind some songs, and I guess most of them will be on the upcoming album "Hey, I'm Just Like You" (release date 09/27/2019) which is announced to contain "lost" songs from the time they were in high school. Until then, you can check out the Spotify playlist "Class of '98" that accompanies the book (and that I particulary liked because I am not that much younger than Tegan and Sara, so I could relate to the music on that list and the overall cultural moment they are describing in the book).
If you want to get an idea of how much work and love has apparently gone into this memoir, check out the website for the book - and here are some of the most outrageous book blurbs ever! :-)
“High School provides a purview of the queer adolescent experience. It is a story of two resilient young women who found their voices through authenticity, connection to others, music, and apparently a lot of experimentation with psychedelics.” - Mom
"This is the best account of my life I've ever read!" - girlfriend from high school
"Tegan and I did a project on Mussolini in high school and we spelled Mussolini wrong - hope they hired a good editor!" - best friend from high school...more
Winner of the Booker Prize 2019 (together with Girl, Woman, Other) This is a flashy, placative, but also intelligent thriller, here to make some pointsWinner of the Booker Prize 2019 (together with Girl, Woman, Other) This is a flashy, placative, but also intelligent thriller, here to make some points about society and to entertain - it's certainly not the most layered or subtle literature ever written, but you know what? It's engaging, rather suspenseful and great fun to read, full of quips and commentary on the world we live in, and sometimes, that's more than enough. And honestly: The Handmaid's Tale wasn't particularly ambiguous or enigmatic either.
As we already know from the book's predecessor, the theocratic terror regime of Gilead did fall - the book ended with a historic symposium on the failed state. "The Testaments" now tells us how this downfall came about, and we hear the story from the alternating perspectives of three women: The infamous and powerful Aunt Lydia from #1, who is one of the women who helped develop the misogynist rules and rites of Gileadean society; a teenage girl who grows up in Gilead and is supposed to submit to her role as a women without any rights; and another young girl who lives in Canada (which borders to Gilead) and discovers her family's connection to Mayday, the resistance group that aims to save women and bring down the vicious regime. In case you are now wondering what happened to Offred, the handmaid at the center of #1, let me tell you that all of the characters are somehow connected to her - beware, readers, it does not make much sense to start "The Testaments" before reading The Handmaid's Tale first.
Atwood does a great job addressing all kinds of current issues within the narrative: Not only the misogyny of the current US President is lurking between the lines, there are also parts that refer to ISIS, the refugee crisis at state borders and in the Mediterranean, xenophobia and the lack of empathy and solidarity. Another important topic is that of opportunism: We learn how Aunt Lydia became an instrumental part in a machine that systemtically exploits and violates women, and as we all know, it's the mass of enablers who keep such machines running, not those at the very top. Just like in #1, the threat of fascism is at the core of the whole story: When inventing Gilead, Atwood was inspired by the diaries of Joseph Goebbels, and the appearence of the women in the book was influenced by the aesthetics of Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda film "Triumph of the Will".
And yes, Atwood paints with very broad brush strokes: This book is highly accessible, and readers aren't required to do much work themselves. I also suppose that the enormous marketing campaign put some people off and, in the eyes of quite a few readers, compromised the novel as a work of "serious" literature. I have to say that I don't really mind though: If "serious" movies with world-class actors can have major premiere events with red carpets, fancy dresses, press frenzy and all, why shouldn't a world-class writer like Margaret Atwood live it up at Waterstones London with her gang of Jeanette Winterson and freakin' Neil Gaiman as well as people dressed as handmaids and Pearl Girls while the whole literary world watches? More power to you, Ms Atwood!
So if you expect intricately crafted, subtly plotted, lyrically written prose, or a completely new twist on the whole Gilead saga, this novel will probably disappoint you. But if you want to read a straightfoward, intelligent, well-paced, witty thriller spiced with social commentary in which women take down the patriarchy, this is the book for you. This text has the potential to reach many readers who normally wouldn't pick up a book on feminism, and it will allow people to join the conversation....more
"Women Talking" is based on a true incident: In the Manitoba Mennonite colony in Bolivia, many women and girls have repeatedly been knocked unconsciou"Women Talking" is based on a true incident: In the Manitoba Mennonite colony in Bolivia, many women and girls have repeatedly been knocked unconscious with a veterinary anesthetic in order to rape them - for several years, they have been gaslighted into thinking that evil spirits were punishing them for their sins, until the truth came out. Toews, wh0 has herself been raised as Mennonite, wanted to write a story honoring these women who were kept illiterate and dependent in a secluded patriarchial society, but found the strength to fight back and inform the state authorities about the crime they had suffered again and again, which resulted in 25 years in prison for the perpetrators.
What makes Toews' book unusual is the narrative approach: We largely read an account of eight women of different ages who secretly meet after they discovered that they and the other women had been sedated and violated. As representatives of all all women in the colony, they are tasked to determine what should be done now: Should they stay and forgive the men, should they stay and fight, or should they leave, thus embarking on a journey into a world utterly unknown to them? Most of the book does just what the title says, it depicts women talking, debating both practical issues and reflecting the worldview with which they have lived all their lives and which now shapes the way they perceive the world and how they think and reason.
The account we read is written down by August Epp who was raised in the colony, but whose parents had to leave and who, now a grown-up, decided to come back - what exactly happened to August and his parents is slowly revealed throughout the story and is thus one of the narrative strands employed to keep the reader's interest. As both an insider and an outsider who knows the world beyond the colony, the character of August also comments on the women and their arguments, thus guiding the reader through the conversations he records.
Toews' idea to structure a book like that really appealed to me, but unfortunately, the dialogue is often lacking suspense and urgency - sometimes, the writing feels a bit stale. Some reviewers have related the dialogue in "Women Talking" to the Socratic method as portrayed by Platon, but I think that is pretty far-fetched. Rather, you could say that the women are slowly turning away from catechism, which is also dialogue-based, by moving away from learnt doctrine and replacing memorised answers with their own reasoning. Still, in order to write a really moving and powerful account, the written dialogue would have needed to be stronger and more engaging.
Nevertheless, this book is an interesting experiment that draws attention to the lives of women in secluded patriarchal communities that are still in existence. I definitely want to read more books by Toews....more
Written in 1965, this is a protofeminist work that anticipated second wave feminism in North America - and it is important to keep that in mind when rWritten in 1965, this is a protofeminist work that anticipated second wave feminism in North America - and it is important to keep that in mind when reading it, because fortunately, some aspects seem outdated for today's readers; unfortunately though, other aspects are still upsettingly relevant. Discussing gender stereotypes and consumerism, the story is told from the perspective of Marian, a young woman who works for a market research company and slowly loses her sense of self after getting engaged. Marian is expected to perform in the roles ascribed to her and to consume in a market economy, until she slowly loses her appetite and feels unable to consume food. The situation of the protagonist is contrasted by that of her roommate who plots to become pregnant without the prospective father's consent and a friend who suffers as a housewife and mother of three.
All of this is of course highly allegorical (but not as abstract and clever as Han Kang's The Vegetarian) and many scenes shine due to Atwood's ability to write psychologically convincing dialogue, but the main problem of the book is its portrayal of male characters: In this novel, all men are idiots. The fiance is imprisoned in his own role, trying to live up to what is expected of him as "the man", the lover is a manipulative drifter, and the others are mere plot devices.
So while Atwood's debut novel certainly isn't a bad book, there's a reason why this is not as widely read today as a lot of her other works....more
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