Ketutar
Another hard one to rate. It was an interesting little thought experiment, but... eh... shockingly little concern shown to the consequences.
Like the train accident. Hey ho, who cares, they were all already dead. Oops, they weren't! What ho. Bah humbug. Think about waking up in the middle of the train accident, maybe injured, and...
Or the little detail of “who's going to do all the work that is needed for these people to survive?” Apparently bread and ink just magically appeared in their houses.
Nah. This book shouldn't even exist.
A wonderful story of a boy who is not like other boys.
Don't try to force people into roles. It's not one's gender or ethnicity or religion or political opinions, sexuality, anything like that, that says what they are good at, what they are meant to do - if you force all girls to become pretty little housewives, you will end up with a lot of unhappy, miserable and pretty bad housewives, and you will lose a lot of talents and resources.
YAY! I'M FINISHED!!!
I hate this book. At least the first 2/3. The last third was better.
I have tried to watch the “best movies” list, and 90% of the movies are... man movies. Now we have the same f-ing problem here. I'm reading this book because it's on some lists I want to read. It's a “man” book. This book doesn't have a universal message. It isn't meant for women, and probably not for people of color either. Traitors, murderers, perverts, sure, but white male such.
Francis Ford Coppola is heavily overrated. Stanley Kubrick was overrated. And Thomas Pynchon is overrated. Sorry, all the fans, but it's some sort of “The Emperor's New Clothes” garystu stuff going on here. These things work - on men - because they make you feel the way you want to feel. They make you feel smart. Deep. Cool. Stoic and resilient. That you are not alone in the chaos and confusion that is the world.
It's like the most popular chic lit. That's... well... it's not “The Emperor's New Clothes”, because womenfolks are supposed to be stupid, and being clever, more intelligent and astute than others, is not something desirable in women. You can't get women through telling them there's something only the smartest can see and get. Women... I have been talking about that in other places, and it has nothing to do with this, because Gravity's Rainbow is not written for women.
I think this book is voted to be one of the most difficult books to read, and they are right. Not because it would be difficult to understand it, but because it's so f-ing boring. Tedious, pretentious, pointless. People say it's so good, funny, post-modern masterpiece... Yeah, sure. We definitely don't share the sense of humor. Its like watching a Stanley Kubrick movie. I'd rather watch paint drying. That at least leads somewhere.
Also, the little stories this book consists of are pretty disgusting.
Some people say it HAS to be read several times... I can't imagine anyone willingly plow through this crap more than once, so to me that's kind of people desperately trying to find something about this to make it worth it, desperately trying to justify reading this book, rereading it to force it to make some sense - to me, it's obvious “Emperor's New Clothes” syndrome - people are saying it's great because it is not, but if more people agree on its greatness, the more special and amazing oneself is, for “understanding the greatness” so many eluded.
But, I have read this, and I don't need to do it again. I am not going to read anything else by this guy, he goes straight to my “people who make me roll my eyes just by existing” list.
Well... a lot of sex. A cute story to bind the sex scenes together. Perfect erotic novella when you're in the mood for some pr0n.
Interesting ideas about the nature of mythological beings. Just one thing there. Incubus is the name for the male, succubus for the female. No, there are no exceptions. Yes, the names are derived from the roles of the human genders in traditional heterosexual sex act, and I'm pretty sure demons don't much care about such things, so it is quite possible for an incubus to be the “bottom”, but it's not applicable here :-D
Unfortunately, I read it because it's a host favorite for a readathon, and I'm not in the mood for pr0n.
Huh. Ok.
Another one of those “I don't know what to do, because parts of it were really bad but other parts were really good” :-D
The thing with feminism and objectifying and misogyny is that it's really hard to describe. You basically know there's a problem when the minor details start to irritate you.
I mean, there are many strong and powerful female characters in this book, women are described as just as intelligent and capable as men, and their sexuality isn't anything negative, aso. But the things...
They choose seven pilgrims, and 6 of them are male. One of them carries a newborn baby girl, and the only female member carries a man in her head. She's basically there as the man's vessel.
Why couldn't half of them be women? So far I haven't seen anything any of them has done that would have been impossible or even implausible for a woman to do. Well... I think Kassad's part suits well for a man, even though she could have been a woman, too. After all, a lot of his properties are enhanced by technology, and there it doesn't matter if you are enhancing a female or male body. Also, in this world, they have very strong women, coming from “heavy” worlds. The P.I. for example, is physically about as strong as Kassad, and performs similar fighting abilities etc.
The other little thing that aggravates me is how he describes people. He is very fond of talking about breasts. Men's attractiveness is described through the eyes of the P.I. - the only woman in the pilgrimship. And even though in Hyperion, I assume Dan Simmons chose to objectify the P.I.'s customer in his pastiche of noir detective novels, there is nothing that justifies her being attracted to father Paul Duré. Yet, she is. Why? It never leads to anything.
I am bored of the idea that the Christian Church, and especially the Catholic Church, would barely survive, but survive nevertheless several hundred years forward. Either one or the other, this wishy washy Church is... irritating.
“If there was some second sacrifice pending, something even more terrible than the crucifixion...“
Hundreds of people have been crucified, tortured, persecuted, lived through more terrible events than the crucifixion without any promises of everlasting existence and divinity, without any gratitude or their suffering counting as any kind of sacrifice, so I think you can stop that now, Christians. Sorry, but you should be ashamed!
Another idè Fix of Simmons is Keats. Come on. He wasn't that great. Or handsome.
