I do think that books have the power to traumatize you or re-traumatize you and we don’t need to subject ourselves to all of them! I had to quit reading Stone Butch Blues because there was so much sexual violence in it that it was making me feel like that kind of abuse is just inevitable. It’s an important book but I don’t think it was healthy for me!
In the same vein: The New Me by Halle Butler. It’s about a 30 year old woman trying to find stable work while struggling with depression. She keeps making attempts at personal transformation to turn things around but always just falls short. Nothing TERRIBLE happens, couldn’t put a content warning on it, but god, it fucked with me.
Oh my god, I had such a hard time reading this one too. I think I had 20 pages left and never finished. I should go back to it and finish it but just thinking about it makes me nauseous. I only came to appreciate it a little later when I was applying for citizenship and was given the run-around in the most drawn out, time consuming, and illogical ways possible. The bureaucratic process was just so absurd and maddening and I had only ever felt the same way when I was reading The Castle. I felt weirdly understood and validated to think back on the book when I was in the middle of the process.
That said, I never want to read that fucking book again.
Agreed. For me it was the writing style. Everyone always lauds the world building but I find the exposition to be so tiresome and boring to slog through. Last minute inner monologues that last for pages and pages to explain the resolution of the plot without any action? Hard pass.
That said, there’s a lot of really interesting themes and I think it’d be really cool to read about in class and examine with a critical/ social justice lens. Could be fun to use it as a jumping off point to talk about settler colonialism.
Lolita. I just don’t get what everyone thinks is so deep about it. The justification I’ve heard is that people find it really challenging and interesting that Humbert Humbert is both a complete monster while being educated and refined, so he becomes a sympathetic character. I never really felt that way while reading the book. I didn’t root for him in any way and I didn’t sympathize with him. It didn’t feel complex or challenging, it just felt like a grim description of abuse.
I don’t dislike the book because I dislike him-- I just don’t really see anything else in there to glom on to and enjoy. The unreliable narrator thing isn’t really enough to keep me interested in this case because the morality of the situation seems so cut and dry. People talk about the sophistication of Humbert Humbert’s references being another selling point but I also find this kind of boring. It’s not unusual or novel for abusers to be educated, high status, powerful people-- it might even be the norm! Since there’s so little else to the book, it leaves me thinking that it’s only a classic because of the titillation of taboo subject matter. I guess I just don’t find it titillating!
The only part of the book that stuck with me is when he lustily describes the girl as having a ‘biscuity scent’. Like ya, she’s 9, she probably smells like graham crackers and grape juice. You’re a sicko, Humbert.
I also loved this one. I feel like it was my first brush with urban magic? Contemporary fantasy? Not sure how to put it. I just liked that they used a car antenna as a wand and were in the middle of the city. Kinda bled into my interest in magical realism and Murakami as an adult.