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I skim read it and found the writing dreadful, characterization fake and inch-deep, and actual plot trite and mystified without a single idea that's worth something. And the revelation at the end of the book? Are you kidding me? Take a random guess, whatever you say will be right 99% of the times. Call that originality. I'm convinced this book won a prize because it's so short that they rewarded it because no one wants to work hard anymore. Paid reviewers LOVE this because you can read it in a couple of hours and feels like FREE MONEY. It's just a pretense of a book. An imitation of good writing and good plot. And then people love it because they love what some institution tells them to love. The book won a prize, so it must be GREAT. I mean: "Before my wife turned vegetarian, I’d always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way." "the inferiority complex I used to have about the size of my penis" "The only respect in which my wife was at all unusual was that she didn't like wearing a bra." "Her voice as it sounded over the phone, always somehow more distinct than in person, never failed to send me into a state of sexual arousal" "Well, I was in a dream, and I was standing on my head … leaves were growing from my body, and roots were sprouting from my hands … so I dug down into the earth. On and on … I wanted flowers to bloom from my crotch so I spread my legs; I spread them wide … " "Can only trust my breasts now. I like my breasts, nothing can be killed by them. Hand, foot, tongue, gaze, all weapons from which nothing is safe. But not my breasts. With my round breasts, I’m okay." "She was standing, motionless, in front of the fridge. The potential options all filled me with fear." Is this good writing? Really? If you told me this was a parody I'd believe it. You can look up the preview on Amazon, the book is so short you can basically read half of it for free. It VERY BARELY qualifies as a "novel" because its word count is just at the edge of a novella. P.S. You want that flavor of mysterious, evocative mystification, but AT LEAST done competently? Forget this book even exists and read "The Vorrh", by B. Catling. Abalieno fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Jun 14, 2016 |
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Jun 14, 2016 15:58
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Mel Mudkiper posted:source your quotes Huh, what do you mean with that?
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Jun 14, 2016 16:14
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Mel Mudkiper posted:If you think The Vegetarian is about mystery and mystification perhaps you should not skim read it and actually read it. It wants to imitate that dreamlike, introspective and symbolic atmosphere. I only think it's dreadful for what it achieves. Symbols are powerful because of what they hide. But being the actual deal here inch-deep, it's all fluff and mystification. Japanese horror B-movies have more creativity and depth. The title is of course misleading. It's not about vegetarianism in ANY way, it's not even technically correct because she starts already as more like "vegan". But if they titled the book The Vegan then it would have been even more misleading. So, it's just about a very subjective mental illness. The book does a poor job with it. The motivations are fluff. It doesn't play realistically, and the dreamlike effect is lost because the depth just isn't there, it's only imitation of what a million of other books do better. There are reviewers that TRY to lift it up as a kind of metaphor of Korean culture and society. None of them explains how you could reconcile that theory with a story of very subjective mental illness that has absolutely no point of possible generalization to "everyone". It's a sad story written with the purpose to shock, without ever earning it.
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Jun 14, 2016 16:26
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Its a commentary on the nature of how human interaction is always in someway based on consumption and exploitation, and how Korean culture is particularly built around women being consumed for the benefit of men. There is an overwhelming feminist perspective in this book you seem to be completely glazing over. It's a disservice to feminism. It's exploitative. It's hubris. It's just a representative act. A show with no actual meaning because, as I said, it's just imitation of an idea the writer thought would get the attention (as I suspect was the purpose of that title). I only find that manipulative in a bad, unsubtle way. It has an agenda and it's poorly written. Those you cite as important themes are only gross generalizations. The book is unable to earnestly engage with anything. What surprises me is that very often you find these big prizes to books that are all form and no content. That happens. But this is a special case where the form itself, the writing line by line, is itself so plain and poor. It's explicitly bad, it's not like you need to have a sophisticated literary sense to notice. And it's impossible EVEN to engage with the characters on a personal level. The woman not only is mentally ill, but she's completely unaware of everything around her. So whereas if you were mentally ill you'd notice how people react around you, you'd be self conscious, struggle to blend in and fail (and this could be an interesting and worthwhile story to tell). But this woman doesn't give a drat. She's ostensibly weird around people, she makes a deliberate exhibition of it. She's completely, utterly self-absorbed and without a trace of empathy. She's essentially not-human, because of how cold she is to everything that surrounds her. But then the book EXPLOITS this by making everyone else around her even more implausibly WORSE. So you'd expect the "sane" people to act differently, but nope. Her husband is a piece of poo poo who has even less empathy and not a single redeeming quality. That's exploitative. It's a carefully picked selection of the worst human beings with the sole purpose to put the protagonist under an excess of negativity, just to justify what happens to her "internally". But I don't want to offend anyone tastes. I explained the motivations why I think this is dreadful. It's not just a generalization on my part for a book "I didn't like". That's a subjective, legitimate reaction. But I do think this book is objectively terrible. Those are some of the reasons, so you can make your own mind. I'm not going to try to persuade people that this book is bad. If you like it, all the better. P.S. "consumption and exploitation of women for the benefit of men" as a KOREAN culture thing? REALLY?! More like an universal human thing in the last thousands of years. So she played a game on the "metaphor", consumption = eating. "I don't like consumption of women, so I stop eating." Whoa! Booker Prize! This is exactly what I mean with "inch-deep". Abalieno fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Jun 14, 2016 |
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Jun 14, 2016 17:01
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Mel Mudkiper posted:because the idealized Korean woman is one who is subdued and complicit in her own abuse. Yes, I agree with that. quote:how she was "ideal" to her husband in her total passivity Yep, the husband being a blatantly piece of poo poo, and the protagonist made into a convenient symbol. That's what I call exploitative. The characters are just embodied concepts without any realism and respect. quote:how a single act of generally meaningless rebellion becomes catastrophic. But it wasn't *meaningless* rebellion. It's self-inflicted pain. That's why the title is ridiculous. It's not like she decided to eat "healthily" and started to do something in a different way. The catastrophe is self-inflicted with minimal impact about what happens around herself. It's more like "doom" and destiny than cause-consequence. Is suicide "meaningless rebellion"? She's essentially into self-harm. Being "vegetarian" is utterly misleading unless there's really someone out there who consider being vegetarian as an act of self-harm. Is self-harm an act of rebellion? And of course it's catastrophic, the concept starts that way regardless of what's around her. She's trying to kill herself, but of course people around her are so bad that certainly they don't help. It's a legitimately sad story used in an illegitimate exploitative way. quote:The total point of her passivity is to show the willingness of men to use women for themselves. If she was a more engaged character, not only would the only intellectual base of the plot dissolve, but she would not even be an effective reflection of societal expectations on women. I still consider this exploitative, convenient (for the book theme) and quite useless as an insightful and meaningful description of society. And it's just a tragedy set in motion and described (and made into universal symbol), then you might as well read a newspaper and don't need the transformative art of fiction and a novel to do that. Abalieno fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Jun 14, 2016 |
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Jun 14, 2016 17:33
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Mel Mudkiper posted:a focused meditation on the predatory nature of human relationships. On one side I considered those relationships utterly implausible, so neither the relationships nor the characters can work for me that way. It's a twisted, convenient representation, to my eyes. Yep, I don't think human relationships work that way, given this context of the story. Even if you take that, it's superficial. I don't know how to better say it than repeating endlessly it's exploitative. I do see what you mean, and you do see what I mean. The difference is the angle the writer forced on the story is utterly dishonest and artificial to me, so why it turns into that story into the one I described. She wants those themes, but because the characters are so fake it all falls apart. We interpret things differently because that angle is a false one for me. You buy into that concept and its use, I don't.
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Jun 14, 2016 17:57
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I don't see how the characters are implausible to you. In a patriarchal society aren't men given the expectation that their worth can be measured by the woman they claim? In that same society aren't fathers measured by the suitability of their daughters? Aren't mothers measured by their dedication to their children? Aren't wives measured by their submission to their husbands? Yeah, let's hammer themes into things. You certainly don't want to use a tiny brush. So yes, I see those things. I don't see the hammer as the best tool to represent them. quote:What particularly about the husband or the brother-in-law comes off as inauthentic to you? The brother-in-law I can't comment because I skipped that almost entirely. The rest, also because this book is so thin, events proceed like following this one directional convenient thread. So there's no depth also because there's no space. The husband isn't even in a "relationship", they are just there as strangers because the writer put them there. Very good writers in so little space would give at least the illusion of a relationship. She doesn't manage that. But hey, this husband is so perceptive that he always thought his wife was alright before "turning vegetarian". The premise already falls apart.
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Jun 14, 2016 18:18
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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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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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knees of putty posted:Surely it's not necessary to identify with a character to be successful. Of course. What I see problematic is the role of the reader in relation to the book. . I say the book gives the high ground to the reader, that's the issue for me. Lack of identification is instrumental to that. quote:but to the refusal to accept husband/father instruction. The refusal to accept husband is called "you could have chosen better", or "getting a divorce". That's why what's left of the book is just a bad metaphor. About "father instruction", that's interesting because I keep wondering why no one mentioned that the hinted explanation of the protagonist's mental illness is that she was abused by her father when she was a kid. Which is one of the reason why I think is downright terrible as it justified itself through the most trite of the cliches. This whole thing: kid is victim of abuse -> mind falls apart because of it -> writer tries to make it into an universal metaphor about predatory nature -> want to become a tree. I can only see it as ludicrous. It's like the ultimate revelation at the end of the book, and it's so predictable the book was better without mentioning it and just leave it completely unexplained. But again, lack of self-sustenance just cannot be seen as "refusal to accept husband/father instruction". It's really a disservice to those themes: a woman has to kill herself in order to affirm some individuality and agency? Is this the message? It's a disservice to feminism if the message is that a woman can only die if she doesn't want to be instrument to a man. It's a sick message.
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Jun 30, 2016 23:23
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Mel Mudkiper posted:How about you respond to my complete deconstruction of this argument rather than just repeating it? If that's your reaction I don't have anything to object. quote:The entire world doesn't work like the United States. Women in Korea cannot simply get divorced easily if they are unhappy, and women are pressured to marry very young to a husband because of his provider role rather than any particular romantic affection. Ok, quaint Korea it is then. I guess becoming trees is easier or more desirable than getting a divorce in Korea. (sorry for not taking this seriously, but you either try to make a specific argument, or an universal one. If this is a story of a specific woman, ok. But then it can't also be some universal metaphor that has to be valid outside its context. You cannot on one had say "it's specific Korea culture", and at the same time "it's the predatory nature of society".) quote:You seem afraid to engage with their own selfishness So now you're patronizing *me*, how nice. You are used to that high moral perch, I see. I can see how the childishly simplified psychology in the book has an appeal for you since you seem so convinced to have guessed my deep personality by reading a forum post. Abalieno fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Jul 1, 2016 |
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Jul 1, 2016 00:10
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Mel Mudkiper posted:You don't get to spend the whole thread accusing everyone of masturbatorily pretending to analyze a "fraud" book to make themselves feel better about themselves I'm not accusing anyone, I accuse the book of a false message. The analysis I read are correct, as I said above. I'm only adding a piece by pointing out other things that the book implies. If you say you actually engaged with the book on that level, okay. quote:Why cannot a novel not simultaneously exist in the personal, cultural, and global sphere? If not in contradiction. You cannot say on one hand "you can't understand this because it's Korean culture", and on the other say it's an universal theme. If it's universal then it's valid universally and it isn't anymore "Korean"-only. Up thread someone said: "it's weird to assume a South Korean author is writing for a Western audience" Ok. So it's not universal anymore. It's either or.
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Jul 1, 2016 00:22
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Why do you think getting a divorce would solve the problem that makes her want to become a tree? Because she wants to become a tree only to flatter the literary metaphor. There's no other reason. It's a writer that wants to show off, not a character struggling with a real issue (and so the fraudulence of the writer). Her symbolic protest is understood, in the book, BY NO ONE. So what kind of protest is one that no one understand and no one explains? It's very obvious then that this protest is merely an act of demonstration toward *the reader*. Because only the reader has what it takes to understand it. Which is why we are supposed to praise the book for its challenging feminist message. Her act of protest is solely meant FOR US. Which is why it's such a bed metaphor. It doesn't work in its context. Would you applaud someone's mental illness because you like to interpret it as a pretty feminist message? Can't you see the hubris in this? To put meaning in the metaphor you have to pull it out of the context, but if you pull it out of the context then it doesn't work anymore. That means there's only one way to write this back into the context of the story: she wants to become vegetarian, and then a tree, because her mind is falling apart. And the more time passes the more it breaks. Which is why I interpret the character no more than a passive victim (and so such a bad feminist symbol). She has no power over what happens to her. Being vegetarian is not a *choice*. She doesn't do it because she wants to be healthy or wants to establish individuality. She does it because she's falling apart and no one is able to help her. Without help she only loses more pieces. That's why it's a bad feminist message, because it pictures a woman who's NOT independent and is killing herself since she can't find a way out of her hole. She's a woman who's unable to be independent, not a woman who's NOT ALLOWED to be independent by the patriarchal society, as the feminist message would ideally make her. When she's in the hospital refusing to eat and refusing to speak to her sister there are no more "predatory males" around her to complain about. She's ALONE. And she's going to die without help. There's no "society" oppressing her. The "society" already forgot she even EXISTS. The metaphor kills her. And the reader is supposed to cheer the metaphor, and her death. Abalieno fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Jul 1, 2016 |
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Jul 1, 2016 00:42
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Mel Mudkiper posted:You completely missed the point of this section and I would explain it again but I feel you would probably just ignore it again. Nope, please explain.
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Jul 1, 2016 00:56
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Guy A. Person posted:Yeah I mean you have the basic story down: in a normal metaphor the woman would become the tree but instead we pan out and see it's mental illness instead. I don't see how this is bad, or how a metaphor is bad if the characters within the story don't understand or explain it. Because there are two levels, one is the fictional context, the other is the universal message meant to the reader. I see a contradiction in how they are structured, and a negative message if you untangle it. Her act of demonstration is to the reader, because she's not trying to convince someone in the book, or obtain something from someone, or even make a symbolic protest like someone setting herself on fire so that people around her might finally react. So, in the fictional context, the desire to become a tree is purely introspective and self-absorbed, while outside that context it's meant as a universal message. But in the fictional context that desire is equal to self harm and seeking death. Usually we do not "glorify" such a thing. We try to help someone in that situation. You don't say: "oh, go on. It will make a beautiful political statement!" So there are these two levels. In one there's a woman in need of help, and is not getting it. On the other we applaud "the message" because it's a pretty statement on feminism, patriarchal society and so on. The metaphor kills her in the sense that the reader does. It's the reader who listens to that message, and the reader applauds it (we say it's a great book). So, consequently, we approve her death and determine it necessary.
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Jul 1, 2016 01:13
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Mel Mudkiper posted:escape all human responsibility because she is unable to deal with the irresolvable necessity of predation. Oh okay, so the whole feminist angle was just a transitory stop toward a much broader stance? That would be interesting, at least it would mean we can exit that whole feminist angle and declare the book is about something completely different, and deeper. We moved from patriarchal society and its burden on women, to the "irresolvable necessity of predation", which is gender-free and absolutely inescapable even if you wanted to. The final stage is: I hate life in every of its forms. Which may or may not retroactively justify the sins of patriarchal society. So, even working from this angle I'm not sure what kind of positive message the book wants to send.
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Jul 1, 2016 01:23
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Hey, I'm back and there are still a few things that I'd like to discuss.Toph Bei Fong posted:Feminism isn't necessarily comforting or uplifting. All of these, despite being terribly depressing works, are extremely feminist in nature because they depict the situation as it is, and ask the reader to confront why it is so. It can be a call to action. But this is not a discussion about feminism in general, because this isn't what you expect a standard representation of feminism. This is certainly not "depicting the situation as it is". The book tries to be original and present a situation entirely new. So it's the very opposite of "accurate presentation of society". It's not realist fiction, but the very opposite. That's why the non-feminist angle that was brought up lately is far more interesting and engaging for what the book is. As a feminist novel, or novel having feminist themes, I still think it does a very poor job, because of all the reason I've explained and how it presents the characters. But if we toss all of this, then it's a whole different discussion. And I wonder where it leads (since no one tries to follow up on that). What's the message of this book? Is it just an open ended question? In that case it surely is less trite and shallow than how I described it, but I still have issues about what the book tries to say and how (especially because no one, even the REVIEW). So, the stuff I wanted to discuss: Mel Mudkiper posted:The whole point of the third chapter is not about giving a big "reveal" about Yeong-Hye wanting to become a tree. The point of the third chapter is the way in which Yeong-Hye's response to the burdens of society are contradicted with her sister's response to those same burdens. Her suicidal nature is explicitly ironic because its showing that Yeong-Hye's final desperate attempt to escape from the predatory nature of human existence has only made her a greater predator of her sister. This is an interpretation I haven't seen in ANY official review. Nor anyone discussed here previously. Nor it's something I got when I read the book. As I said, THIS is interesting. Because if this interpretation is correct, its logic overwrites the simple "feminist" angle that I considered very weak and shallow. In this case, if this is correct, the feminist message is only a veil hiding a deeper undercurrent that is more pervasive and moves away from a simple critics of a certain society and gender roles. It actually removes the genders as the focus. It's more universal and a radical description of the whole world. But it's also not as I personally interpret the story. So instead I'm giving you my own interpretation of how I read all of it: I still believe that the woman's mind broke. And the more time passes the more it breaks, autonomously and not because of some patriarchal society that presses on. It's a descent into mental illness and self-harm. She's not autonomous anymore, she's not claiming individuality and agency by making her choice, she's just sending a SIGNAL THAT SHE NEEDS HELP. She needs help putting the pieces back together. But because she's surrounded by horrible people, the only help she gets is a shove. In the final part of the book this woman has completely shut down herself inside. She doesn't speak anymore to the world. She's removed from reality because (like Malazan's Mhybe) she's trapped in a "dreamworld". She shuts in. Now, the only way to survive is trying to breach that wall, trying to connect with her, and try to bring her out again, because otherwise she will only wither and die, exactly as all things that do not connect anymore to the outside world and that don't continue that taking/giving relationship. You give you take, the exchange keeps you living, because "life" is that, a symbiosis with an environment while trying to preserve your sense of self and sustenance. But she's locked in, trapped in that dreamworld and, left alone, she only descends further into that dream, the deep end. Now the sister. The sister tries to connect with her, but she cannot find a good way, so she only ends up empathizing from outside. It's like watching someone who's sleeping and in pain, but without means of waking her up. That's her situation. During this process she actually realizes she's not different. They both share the same origin and the same trauma. That means that also the sister is going down the same path of having her mind breaking apart. She realizes she's the same, that she's going to break too. But in the end there's something that saves her. She has a son. Both women are equally broken and sharing the same story. They are mirrored. But one dies, whereas the other lives. Why? Because one woman descended into herself. She didn't have a "real" husband to care for. She didn't have a real life to begin with. So she slips into her dreamworld where she isolates herself from everything else, until she dies. Further downward the spiral. But her sister, who's moving down the same path since they share the same beginning, has her son. The son is a life anchor to the world. A responsibility that keeps her "sane", in the sense that the son keeps her functional and connected to the outside world. She can't as easily cut the ties to her son as her sister cut her ties to her husband. And that's why, ultimately, it's very shallow: the sister is saved by the power of love for her son. Peel posted:Also while I was the one who was quoted calling them predators I totally sympathised with the first part narrator when his wife's sudden strange behaviour wasted a ton of expensive food and caused him professional problems. That's actually one good reason why I never bit on that feminist angle. How can you even justify that a woman has the right to throw away all that food just because she decided to not eat it. They are married, the food is something they share. That choice she made is completely one-sided and shows no respect whatsoever for her husband. She didn't even ask, or discuss or explain any darn thing. Okay you want to stop eating meat. It doesn't mean your choice has to be forced on the husband *too*. That's still very blatantly sexism if you take it from the gender role angle. She made a choice unconditionally without any care of who's around her. So, morally, why should the husband care about her then? Isn't marriage, ideally, a mutual thing in an equal relationship? She acts the same as he acts: as if they are completely self-absorbed and egoistical to the extreme (and so again my claim that the situation of this couple is just too extreme to be felt as plausible as a story). Behaving like that she simply mirrored the most obnoxious behavior you expect from the "male predator" who uses women as objects. She's no better than her husband. Mel Mudkiper posted:I am not one to reject a book for having elf wizards outright but I do have to admit elf wizards tend to be something of a red flag for me Well, Malazan actually has undead raptor wizards that roam the world in their flying mountain fortress, and magic swords that contain portals to other dimensions (spoiler). Donaldson's says ( http://www.nyrsf.com/2015/03/fantasy-is-the-most-intelligent-precise-and-accurate-means-of-arriving-at-the-truth-s-p.html ): quote:I’m a student of Joseph Conrad, Henry James, William Faulkner, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, and I say this: Erikson is as serious as any of them. Notice also that other quote: “Fantasy is the most intelligent, precise, and accurate means of arriving at the truth.” Want serious actual literature? Here some examples: R. Scott Bakker, The Darkness that Comes Before Steven Erikson, The Forge of Darkness William T. Vollmann, The Dying Grass John Sayles, A Moment in the Sun I'm not a lover of Fantasy. I'm lover of big books that have human bones mixed with the paper of the pages, and not the artificially plastic vegan flavor and embarrassing exhibitionism of The Vegetarian. WARNING: they have more than the 135 pages of The Vegetarian and actually require some concentration and effort to be understood. Abalieno fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Jul 5, 2016 |
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Jul 5, 2016 17:59
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I don't think there is a single line of text in the entire book to justify this interpretation. quote:The only times when the pain simply, miraculously ceases, are those moments just after she laughs. Something Ji-woo says or does makes her laugh, and then immediately afterwards she is left blank, empty even of pain. At such times, the sheer fact of her having laughed seems unbelievable, and makes her laugh again.
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Jul 5, 2016 21:13
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I just do not think I am the kind of reader intended for that genre and I have kind of given up trying to let people prove to me that I am. That's amusing. You don't notice the contradiction, do you? On one side you say literature has no genre (of course, taxonomy is always arbitrary), then you say you can't read fantasy or sci-fi because you aren't "that kind of reader". So you do recognize the genre and use it to decide what to read. The genre distinction dictates what you read and what you like, but then you are smart enough to declare this boundary doesn't actually exist? It exists for YOU and determines what you do and what you like. That counts as "existing", for me. The perceived distinction between literature and genre fiction is just that, for a whole lot of people is a marker of quality. Today a certain type of "literature" is itself a genre, and it defines its identity and types of readers. It's exactly the same. I'll offer a quote by Scott Bakker that applies splendidly to you: quote:So he simply declares that he has never heard anyone in his ingroup explicitly dismiss genre–as if only those who explicitly embrace bigotry can be bigots. And as if he and his cohort don’t regularly deride the ignorant masses via their ignorant tastes. https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/russell-smith-shrugged/ And some other bits of quotes: quote:Given that the whole point of importing ‘literary’ complexities into epic fantasy was to reach out, to short circuit the way technology allows us to spontaneously group ourselves according to patterns of cultural consumption, to cleanse the incipient heretics from our reading lists Abalieno fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Jul 7, 2016 |
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Jul 7, 2016 02:15
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:If you've looked at a B&N fantasy section lately, it's not all wheel of time and so forth. Usually they'll have a few older authors with some merit as well. I mean, Lovecraft for example is worth reading at least a little bit of no matter what your taste is, just because his work is such a part of the cultural zeitgeist. So your canon is the author needs to be dead to be good? Come on, you all. Just admit you're ignorant. You don't know what you talk about and, indeed, you cannot pick up a random fantasy book and have a great chance it's good. It happens exactly the same for the rest of literature. So what you do? Have to rely on the "Man Booker" to tell you what's good, or need to have a huge impact on culture, like Lovecraft, so that you are persuaded to look. A number of hypocritical posts to declare there are no genres, and then the voice of truth: quote:time spent reading that crap could be much more profitably spent elsewhere. "That crap" is genre fiction, of course. As if only those who explicitly embrace bigotry can be bigots.
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Jul 7, 2016 02:45
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Fantasy and Sci-Fi exist as a marketing term, not as an actual literary distinction. If literature has no distinction of genre, why is it that you decide what to read based on its genre?
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Jul 7, 2016 03:19
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Lightning Lord posted:Abalieno you are a very bad advocate for SFF and you should probably stop posting right now. I'm speaking as someone who has a bookshelf of the likes of Moorcock, Smith, Vance, Finney, Holdstock, Zelazny, Wolfe, Swanwick, Butler and so on next to me as I post, so this isn't one of your hated ~*literature*~ oppressors saying this. For your own sake just slink off. I wasn't advocating anything, just pointing out the contradictions in the argument of a poster. That discussion spawned from the fact there are fantasy books that deal with "literary" themes. But some readers come with prejudices, and so stop at the cover. Or just lump everything together to more easily dismiss it while keeping their literature clean from "impurities". It's like a well tended garden. I absolutely do not care, nor care to discuss the fact some readers mock and ridicule sci-fi/fantasy readers. It doesn't touch me. This representation is upside down: the type of reader Mel Mudkiper represents is a reader that stops at the cover jacket. Fantasy or sci-fi will stop him. Genre, for him, builds a fence that determines what he can or cannot read. That's his own self-imposed limit and he himself is the only victim of such prejudices. He limits himself to what he's comfortable to read, without realizing it's the same behavior he accuses genres readers: of not exiting their comfort zone. But genres readers, because they feed on a wider culture and don't have to very carefully select their stuff on the premise of purity or moral superiority, because they already come from the popular level, don't usually come with prejudices and don't build fences around what they can or cannot read. I'm not even a "genre" reader, I only mostly seek ambition and certain themes and patterns. I read Parallel Stories by Peter Nadas a few months back, I read Vollmann, William Gass. I await both Alan Moore's Jerusalem and Schmidt's Bottom's Dream in September. I read books that usually no one reads or wants to read. One of the last I bought is the collected novels of Flann O'Brien. Some of these are considered so niche and elitist WITHIN the Literature as a genre. Do you think "literature" or genre scare me? There are no quality ranks embedded in genres for me. I don't decide whether to read or not a book depending on the cover or the genre the book is marketed at, and I don't come with prejudices. As I said I like a certain kind of literary ambition. The great majority of fantasy and sci-fi don't have a whole lot of ambition and comfortably sit in the genre to just match expectation and give the reader what he demands. EXACTLY as it happens within "Literature" as a genre. But, again, if you know where to look there are plenty of amazing things, and they can rank as high as, or higher, the best the "official" literature can offer. On top of the fact that the "literature" genre, as Bakker says, in order to keep its own garden clean from contamination, in order to maintain a sense of identity and distinction from what outside and still claim a certain superiority, ends up endlessly repeating itself, and so just becoming trite redundancy. That's why within genre is even more likely to find something innovative. There are less rules, less requirements to respect, less boundaries. Less prejudices overall that censor the range of what you can write about and how. Genre fiction itself is made of endless contamination, and that's a good thing that will keep it relevant. Abalieno fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Jul 9, 2016 |
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Jul 9, 2016 01:58
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:you literally rambled into a thread about minimalist Korean literary fiction to explain that you didn't read the book but everyone should read Prince of Nothing instead because it's what real literature looks like. No, I brought up Malazan because the Mhybe shows a direct crossing of themes with this book. Then people proceeded to mock it and chuckle about it because it has elves in it. If you look back the first book I quoted in comparison with this one is: "The Vorrh", by B. Catling. I was just mentioning examples of stuff that executes certain aspects shared with The Vegetarian, but a lot better. The Vegetarian has dream sequences used to elevate its metaphor, I explained that it attempts a certain mystifying angle on its metaphor that is more typically found in genre fiction, and does it very poorly. This was brought up because The Vegetarian attempts certain things that are common in genre fiction, in the way it spins its metaphor. But readers who shun genre fiction of course don't know, and so applaud a weak book like this one and admire it because it's "haunting" even if its message is trite and shallow. It's as if certain people in certain circles applauded what The Vegetarian does because it attempted certain novel things in literary fiction, but just because they don't know those same things are typical and better executed in genre fiction. Genre fiction without "genre", so that it appeared palatable to certain literary establishment that otherwise would turn its nose. quote:I'm sure you have genres you aren't particularly interested in as well, and that's also legal and ok. The book of the month this month is fantasy, imagine if someone who really really loves crime fiction barged into that thread and started shouting at people that they should be reading Inspector Rebus novels instead. Chill out, nobody's loving persecuting you. The mistake isn't about liking or not liking a particular genre personally. The mistake is about thinking that a certain quality is exclusive to that particular genre you prefer. Mel Mudkiper posted:I hate to break it to you, but I do not think your tastes are as universal and unbiased as you think. I did say I like big books that do certain specific things, yes. You could make a case where "big book" make a genre, so I do enjoy a particular genre of book too. But this isn't about not having particular preferences in the books I read. Everyone has. The difference is coming to a book with biases. I certainly don't dismiss a book because it's "short". In fact I did check out The Vegetarian and I had the intention of reading it fully because I was intrigued by what it wanted to do. Its failure isn't because it's short, but because while reading it I thought it was bad for the reasons already explained. The same as I checked The Vegetarian I checked Mo Yan's Republic of Wine and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, when he won the Nobel, neither stands out as particularly long, and they ARE excellent. A book wins a prize and it draws attention, that's just about it. If I was shaming Mel Mudkiper because he likes certain "literary" books I would REPEAT the same mistake he did (and notice that when I criticize a certain literary circle I don't criticize the garden itself, but the practice of those who tend it). And besides, I don't even know what he usually reads to make that case. I instead did point out that he admitted he judges a book by its cover when he said that if he realizes a book is sci-fi or fantasy he looks away. In this case of The Vegetarian, where the style and themes ARE, in my opinion, typically found in genre fiction, it means Mel Mudkiper appreciated a certain "argument" here, but otherwise dismissed it on the premise of "genre". Abalieno fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Jul 9, 2016 |
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Jul 9, 2016 06:59
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Mel Mudkiper posted:wildly insecure white men So now the discussion devolved into both sexist and racial attacks? quote:Also will you quit calling the message trite and shallow when literally everyone else in this thread disagrees with what you say the message is? Not sharing a popular opinion isn't a point of merit or demerit. The value is only in the motivations. The message is trite and shallow and I will repeat it because that's how I see it. It's not the number of people disagreeing that can convince me (especially in the form of the self-congratulatory circlejerk you entertain here), only the motivations. And right now those motivations didn't convince me. quote:There have been several different meaningful interpretations that all give the story a much richer context than you are willing to give it, and yet you still assert your interpretation as the one "correct" one by a combination of sheer arrogance and fiat. Huh? I never claimed my interpretation trumps everyone else's. I'll quote again myself: quote:As I said, THIS is interesting. Because if this interpretation is correct, its logic overwrites the simple "feminist" angle that I considered very weak and shallow. In this case, if this is correct, the feminist message is only a veil hiding a deeper undercurrent that is more pervasive and moves away from a simple critics of a certain society and gender roles. It actually removes the genders as the focus. It's more universal and a radical description of the whole world. Where's the "arrogance" in saying I interpret a story differently? No one discussed my interpretation, no one discussed yours either. It seems no one here felt like engaging with that richer context. It was mentioned briefly by you and then nothing. Everyone else was a lot more keen on commenting on the patriarchy, male predators and a feminist angle. I also went reading a number of official reviews from the more popular news sites and magazines online, and there's a hint of the same debate. For example here: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2016/02/han_kang_s_the_vegetarian_reviewed.html quote:Some reviews of The Vegetarian have insisted on viewing the novel as a piece of social protest, but this seems beside the point, unless the protest is against existence itself. There just doesn't seem to be this univocal consensus around this book. Abalieno fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Jul 10, 2016 |
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Jul 9, 2016 18:14
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Dismissing an argument not on its merit but on the premise of gender and color of skin is both sexist and racist. If I claimed this book was awful and shallow by underlining it was written by a Korean woman that claim would have been equally sexist and racist. But of course I haven't done it because I don't think that way. Abalieno fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Jul 9, 2016 |
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Jul 9, 2016 21:07
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Hello fellow haters! I've developed one more arguments to discuss The Vegetarian from a different angle, joining it up with the scorn thrown at Donaldson and his Thomas Covenant. It is quite typical to see Thomas Covenant dismissed because the protagonist rapes a woman in the first book, and this is also conflated with a trope of fantasy as a genre. Some readers just reject that part, but I'm not sure they realize its deeper implications and the moral subtlety that derives. As in The Vegetarian, Thomas Covenant is trapped inside a dreamworld. This dreamworld is not a separate dimension, as if walking directly into another world. It's instead an internal landscape, a metaphor, that turns outside. Exactly as it happens to everyone of us when we dream: what is inside is projected outside. At that point in the story Thomas Covenant his angry at himself and his life. When he rapes this woman, he does it fully aware that this woman is "fictional", that she's a projection of his mind, and the violence of the act is not an act of violence to some other person, but to himself. The struggle that comes out of that scene is a "symbol" of the protagonist own internal struggle, and coming to terms with that act is a symbol of the conflict he lives. So this woman isn't a "woman", but she's a representation of an idea. A metaphor. One of Thomas Covenant own voices, taking shape as a person. Mirroring in fiction what happens in reality: a writer that puts on the pages these voices he find within himself, as if those voices are real, whispering to him. Thomas Covenant is himself the metaphor of the writer and writing. Exactly as in The Vegetarian the characters animate ideas. In The Vegetarian the frame of the story is not unlike Thomas Covenant. The woman is blocked into her dreamworld, a violent dreamworld that represents her own internal conflict. The same pattern is reproduced: the sublimation of an internal landscape made into a statement (to the reader). The premises are all the same, what changes is how the respective protagonist deals with that internal conflict. For the woman in the Vegetarian it's just going downward a spiral. There's no way to come to terms with her dreamworld. She never questions what she sees, she never enters in dialogue with it. She's just a passive observer of what happens to herself. The dreamworld dictates who she is and who she becomes. And her voice becomes the voice of the Dreamworld, she's lost to it. Whereas in Thomas Covenant that dreamworld is the place of a continuous struggle, of continuous self-observation, judgement and self-hatred that is pushed to its limit. It's, in the standard context of fantasy, a journey. A journey through a landscape that symbolizes a journey of the soul and its qualities. And it integrates a deep and complex epistemological discourse, because it implies that the persons you recognize beside yourself are just aspects you find already in yourself. Like Husserl's phenomenology, the world is built through an act of observation, all its moving parts are always internal. Same as in Von Foerster's constructivism. Which make Thomas Covenant "dream" as valid of moral implications as the real life. Which is why I find The Vegetarian "weak". The theme of the impossibility to escape the cycles of consumption, that the review brands as "the protest against existence itself", is a theme that is only hinted at. Many reviews don't even acknowledge it. So, for me, the moment the book becomes interesting and shows some actual complexity, it stops. It doesn't dare go further to explore what it is actually saying. It ends up described by many as "haunting" and "evocative", but meaning that it stays vague. It walks up to the edge, then turns. Leaving itself to readers' interpretations, that in this case end up so conflicting to be more like "misunderstandings". Instead, stepping slightly outside topic but back into that genre versus literature argument, I propose a quick challenge if there's someone who wants to take it. Read just one page of Malazan, and tell me what you think about it: http://www.tor.com/2016/04/04/excerpts-steven-erikson-malazan-fall-of-light-chapter-one/ Just that first section that ends *before* the first chapter. It's a single page, it doesn't require any previous knowledge of Malazan or Erikson, or fantasy as a genre. It's just a statement. Having read lots of reactions of various readers to the book, I'm not sure it is understood. That's for me something unprecedented in literature, and in fantasy as well. As a rarity within a rarity. And that, in just a page, contains a lot of what makes Malazan something part of the genre, while defying its boundaries. If you do, I'll then offer my interpretation, since I'm more used to Erikson, and will explain why it is that it does something unprecedented, that few readers seem to have understood.
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Jul 11, 2016 22:47
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I didn't like The Vegetarian because it was not fantasy. And I'm not immediately interested in something just because it is. This discussion here is relevant to me, the one over there is not.
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Jul 11, 2016 23:56
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