Female Chauvinist Pigs
Author: Ariel Levy 2005 200 pp
My rating: 3*
Started February 22 2009, Finished February 22 2009.
This flawed book probes an interesting subject: how the gains of the feminist movement have degenerated to widespread female complicity in raunch/porn culture. The book’s main shortcoming is that it feels like a loosely connected series of magazine articles (Levy writes for New York and The New Yorker) that don’t build on each other and some of which only tangentially bear on the topic. Nonetheless, the better chapters do provide insight into the phenomenon of the current generation of you-can-be-anything-you-want women routinely choosing to employ that freedom to objectify themselves in order to gain the attention of traditionally unenlightened males. The introductory section on the Girls Gone Wild videos and the chapter about an upscale prep school in the Bay Area are the standouts. Off topic (though non necessarily uninteresting chapters) include a discussion of first generation feminists and an overview of the eye-openingly bizarre lesbian scene in San Francisco its members classifying themselves as butch, femme, trans, boi, Fems etc.
If Levy does arrive at a conclusion about her topic it is that this is still a man’s world.
Nitpicking:
Levy’s critique of Camille Paglia’s anti-feminist essay which infers women make wimpy music cites Madonna as a counter-example, projecting wild energy and cool, implying Madonna is the exemplar of the empowered, have it all woman. (109) But isn’t Madonna the progenitor of the FCP and as responsible for the syndrome as anyone and thus a peculiar choice for a feminist writer to use as to rebut the charges of an anti-feminist?
Levy seems to describe almost every subject’s appearance and assess her attractiveness, implying she has bought into the FCP values she objects to. This sense in reinforced by her use of frat type diction e.g. boobs, tits.
All subjects seem to come from the same part of the socio-economic spectrum: white and reasonably well off. One wonders how FCP values have affected other parts of society.
We decided long ago that the Male Chauvinist Pig was an unenlightened rube, but the Female Chauvinist Pig (PCP) has risen to a kind of exalted status. She is post-feminist. She is funny. She gets it. … Why try to beat them when you can join them? (93)
Raunch provides a special opportunity for a woman who wants to prove her mettle. It’s in fashion and it is something that has traditionally appealed exclusively to men and actively offended women, so producing it or participating in it is a way both to flaunt your coolness and to mark yourself as different, tougher, looser, funnier -- a new sort of loophole woman who is “not like other women,” who instead is “like a man.” (96)
FCP s don’t bother to question the criteria on which women are judged, they are too busy judging other women themselves. (103)
These are not stories about girls getting what they want sexually, they are stories about girls gaining acclaim socially, for which their sexuality is a tool (145-6)
“There’s not really any sluts at my school, but if you walked in there on the your first day, you’d think my whole school was sluts.” (148)
… “girls hook up with other girls because they know the guys will like it,” she said. “They think, Then the guys are going to want to hook up with me and give me a lot of attention “ (150)
The chapter about teenagers, FCPs in Training, is eye opening. All the kids interviewed go to good private schools, but the girls at least all seem to be in the thrall of FCP culture and values. Where are the parents?
Japan and most western European countries have adolescent pregnancy rates of less than 400 per 1000. (Uber-progressive Holland shines with only 12 pregnancies per 1000.) The numbers go up in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, where there are between 40 and 69 teen pregnancies out of every 1000. But in the United States, we have more than 80 teen pregnancies per 1000. (161)
Friday, March 13, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Men Without Women
Men Without Women
Author: Ernest Hemingway 1928 130 pp
My rating: 3.5*
Started March 2 2009, Finished March 3 2009.
Almost every one of the stories in this slim volume packs a punch, sometimes literally. The same potency at double the length would have put this book in the four star category. The salient feature of most of these pieces is that they are compelling tales, generating a sense of tension and expectation that makes the reader want to know what is going to happen. They also provide some insight into the macho component of human behavior. The book lives up to its title with only one of fourteen stories containing a significant female character; the male characters for their part tend to be inexpressive to an almost self-parodying degree. The stories that will last the longest with me are “The Undefeated”, a chronicle of an aging bullfighter with echoes of The Old Man and The Sea, “Fifty Grand” an account of a prizefighter giving his all for one last big pay day, and the haunting “Now I Lay Me” about a convalescing soldier whose wound resulted from a shelling while he slept, who now is afraid of sleep and keeps himself awake by visualizing the fishing holes of his youth.
He knew all about bulls. He did not have to think about them. He just did the right thing. His eyes noted things and his body performed the necessary measures without thought If he though about it, he would be gone (26)
It was bright and cold and the air came cold through the open windshield. (55)
Author: Ernest Hemingway 1928 130 pp
My rating: 3.5*
Started March 2 2009, Finished March 3 2009.
Almost every one of the stories in this slim volume packs a punch, sometimes literally. The same potency at double the length would have put this book in the four star category. The salient feature of most of these pieces is that they are compelling tales, generating a sense of tension and expectation that makes the reader want to know what is going to happen. They also provide some insight into the macho component of human behavior. The book lives up to its title with only one of fourteen stories containing a significant female character; the male characters for their part tend to be inexpressive to an almost self-parodying degree. The stories that will last the longest with me are “The Undefeated”, a chronicle of an aging bullfighter with echoes of The Old Man and The Sea, “Fifty Grand” an account of a prizefighter giving his all for one last big pay day, and the haunting “Now I Lay Me” about a convalescing soldier whose wound resulted from a shelling while he slept, who now is afraid of sleep and keeps himself awake by visualizing the fishing holes of his youth.
He knew all about bulls. He did not have to think about them. He just did the right thing. His eyes noted things and his body performed the necessary measures without thought If he though about it, he would be gone (26)
It was bright and cold and the air came cold through the open windshield. (55)
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
1632
1632
Author: Eric Flynt 2000 597 pp
My rating: 2*
Started February 23 2009, Finished February 28 2009.
This work of “alternative history” compels as an historical/military work, but repels as a literary undertaking -- it is the first book I’ve read since I started blogging in which I did not find a single passage worth highlighting or commenting upon. The basic story is that for reasons not relevant to the plot, a 6 mile diameter circular section of West Virginia circa 2000 AD is instantly and without warning relocated to central Germany in the midst of the 30 Years War. The worthwhile parts of the book provide some insight into the tactics and depredations of the 30 Years War or depict battle scenes between the West Virginians and the pike wielding infantry of 350 years earlier. The pleasures these aspects of 1632 provide are offset by the total lack of any humanly believable characters (all the main characters find love at first site, usually in the midst of battle with a person centuries removed) and the general implausibility of how events transpire once the West Virginians have accepted their new reality -- basically the Americans never make a wrong move and virtually everyone gets along perfectly and agrees with everyone else on all major issues. The head cheerleader who is also an utterly cold-blooded killer is a particularly eye-rolling creation.
Author: Eric Flynt 2000 597 pp
My rating: 2*
Started February 23 2009, Finished February 28 2009.
This work of “alternative history” compels as an historical/military work, but repels as a literary undertaking -- it is the first book I’ve read since I started blogging in which I did not find a single passage worth highlighting or commenting upon. The basic story is that for reasons not relevant to the plot, a 6 mile diameter circular section of West Virginia circa 2000 AD is instantly and without warning relocated to central Germany in the midst of the 30 Years War. The worthwhile parts of the book provide some insight into the tactics and depredations of the 30 Years War or depict battle scenes between the West Virginians and the pike wielding infantry of 350 years earlier. The pleasures these aspects of 1632 provide are offset by the total lack of any humanly believable characters (all the main characters find love at first site, usually in the midst of battle with a person centuries removed) and the general implausibility of how events transpire once the West Virginians have accepted their new reality -- basically the Americans never make a wrong move and virtually everyone gets along perfectly and agrees with everyone else on all major issues. The head cheerleader who is also an utterly cold-blooded killer is a particularly eye-rolling creation.
Monday, March 9, 2009
The Forever War
The Forever War
Author: Dexter Filkins 2008 342 pp
My rating: 4*
Started March 06 2009, Finished February 09 2009.
Filkins accounts of his time in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2001 to 2007 come in the voice of an eyewitness reporter, almost completely devoid of political and big picture analysis, instead conveying what it’s like to be a soldier or civilian in the midst of the nihilistic maelstrom that the battlegrounds of the GWOT became. While the writing is uniformly powerful, the sections where Filkins is embedded with marines during the crushing of the Falluja insurgency being the standouts for me, I thought the book could have been even better with some changes. I found the early chapters on Afghanistan, a small part of the book, did not really mesh with the Iraq chapters and that the book probably would have been stronger without them. Also the book lacked an overarching narrative or emotional theme and reads as a series of very strong dispatches, a bunch of newspaper features rather than a book written towards a single purpose. The book’s main character is Filkins himself though he remains a cipher; beyond that he is a determined runner, we learn little about him, particularly how the years of extreme carnage and exposure to personal peril affected him. Both of these weaknesses could have been remedied in a single act by recasting the book as a memoir.
This book could serve as a rebuke to anyone who thought the trillion dollars the US has channeled into the GWOT was money well spent. A virtual case study in the cost effectiveness of the US approach to the GWOT is the section that describes how a single insurgent sniper in Falluja pinned down an entire platoon and survived attempts to kill him by air, artillery and tanks. (200-3)
The insurgents were brilliant at that. They could spot a fine mind or a tender soul wherever it might me, chase it down and kill it dead. The heart of a nation. The precision was astounding. (82)
Colonel in the Iraqi army in the early stages of the invasion: “I believe Saddam is an American agent”. (89)
You had to accept your ignorance; it was the beginning of whatever wisdom you could hope to muster. (124)
“They really hate us here.” (127)
The Iraqis lied to the Americans, no question. But the worst lies were the ones the Americans told themselves. They believed them because it was convenient -- an because not believe them was too horrifying to think about. (130)
If you multiplied the raid on Abu Shakur a thousand times, it was not difficult to conclude that the war was being lost: however many Iraqis opposed them before the Americans came into the village, dozens and dozens more did by the time they left. The Americans were making enemies faster than they could kill them. (153)
[Filkins asked an Iraqi woman why she risked voting]
“I voted in order to prevent my country from being destroyed by its enemies,” she said. …
What enemies? I asked …
She began to tremble.
“You -- you destroyed our country,” Saadi said. “The Americans, the British. I am sorry to be impolite. But you destroyed our country, and you called it democracy.” (244)
The marines were still using Vietnam era Sea Stallion helicopters which were much slower and less night capable than the Black Hawks used by the army. The army flew at night in safety, the marines during the day and were shot down. (paraphrase from 278)
[Commenting on the quick destruction of a park the US built in Baghdad] Everything was like that in Iraq: anything anyone ever tried turned to black. (293)
Running at night: it was madness. I was courting death, or at least a kidnapping. The capital was a free-for-all; it was a state of nature. There was no law anymore, no courts, nothing -- there was nothing at all. They kidnapped children now, they killed them and dumped them in the street. The kidnapping gangs bought and sold people; it was like its own terrible ecosystem. One of the kidnapping gangs could have driven up in a car and beat me and gagged me and I could have screamed like a crazy person, but I doubt anyone would have done anything. … The kidnappers had more power than anyone. (294)
Author: Dexter Filkins 2008 342 pp
My rating: 4*
Started March 06 2009, Finished February 09 2009.
Filkins accounts of his time in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2001 to 2007 come in the voice of an eyewitness reporter, almost completely devoid of political and big picture analysis, instead conveying what it’s like to be a soldier or civilian in the midst of the nihilistic maelstrom that the battlegrounds of the GWOT became. While the writing is uniformly powerful, the sections where Filkins is embedded with marines during the crushing of the Falluja insurgency being the standouts for me, I thought the book could have been even better with some changes. I found the early chapters on Afghanistan, a small part of the book, did not really mesh with the Iraq chapters and that the book probably would have been stronger without them. Also the book lacked an overarching narrative or emotional theme and reads as a series of very strong dispatches, a bunch of newspaper features rather than a book written towards a single purpose. The book’s main character is Filkins himself though he remains a cipher; beyond that he is a determined runner, we learn little about him, particularly how the years of extreme carnage and exposure to personal peril affected him. Both of these weaknesses could have been remedied in a single act by recasting the book as a memoir.
This book could serve as a rebuke to anyone who thought the trillion dollars the US has channeled into the GWOT was money well spent. A virtual case study in the cost effectiveness of the US approach to the GWOT is the section that describes how a single insurgent sniper in Falluja pinned down an entire platoon and survived attempts to kill him by air, artillery and tanks. (200-3)
The insurgents were brilliant at that. They could spot a fine mind or a tender soul wherever it might me, chase it down and kill it dead. The heart of a nation. The precision was astounding. (82)
Colonel in the Iraqi army in the early stages of the invasion: “I believe Saddam is an American agent”. (89)
You had to accept your ignorance; it was the beginning of whatever wisdom you could hope to muster. (124)
“They really hate us here.” (127)
The Iraqis lied to the Americans, no question. But the worst lies were the ones the Americans told themselves. They believed them because it was convenient -- an because not believe them was too horrifying to think about. (130)
If you multiplied the raid on Abu Shakur a thousand times, it was not difficult to conclude that the war was being lost: however many Iraqis opposed them before the Americans came into the village, dozens and dozens more did by the time they left. The Americans were making enemies faster than they could kill them. (153)
[Filkins asked an Iraqi woman why she risked voting]
“I voted in order to prevent my country from being destroyed by its enemies,” she said. …
What enemies? I asked …
She began to tremble.
“You -- you destroyed our country,” Saadi said. “The Americans, the British. I am sorry to be impolite. But you destroyed our country, and you called it democracy.” (244)
The marines were still using Vietnam era Sea Stallion helicopters which were much slower and less night capable than the Black Hawks used by the army. The army flew at night in safety, the marines during the day and were shot down. (paraphrase from 278)
[Commenting on the quick destruction of a park the US built in Baghdad] Everything was like that in Iraq: anything anyone ever tried turned to black. (293)
Running at night: it was madness. I was courting death, or at least a kidnapping. The capital was a free-for-all; it was a state of nature. There was no law anymore, no courts, nothing -- there was nothing at all. They kidnapped children now, they killed them and dumped them in the street. The kidnapping gangs bought and sold people; it was like its own terrible ecosystem. One of the kidnapping gangs could have driven up in a car and beat me and gagged me and I could have screamed like a crazy person, but I doubt anyone would have done anything. … The kidnappers had more power than anyone. (294)
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The Glorious Cause
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789
Author: Robert Midlekauff 1982 664 pp
My rating: 3*
Started January 20 2009, Finished February 20 2009.
This book is the fourth volume of The Oxford History of the United States which I’ve read, and by far the least satisfying. While the others (Battle Cry of Freedom, What Hath God Wrought and Freedom From Fear) where characterized by a straightforward, succinct and fact-filled-I-have-to-restraint-myself-not-to-make-a-note-on-every-single-page style, The Glorious Cause was just the opposite: unlike the others, it could have been much shorter and I found its prose style, which seemed to slightly mimic the rhetoric of the period it described, generally long winded and confusing. Why I can unhesitatingly recommend the other three volumes as supremely informative, engrossing and authoritative histories, after I finished this one I felt like I hadn’t learned that much about the era. One thing I did come away from the book with, in a lesson that reverberates today, was the notion that the British, hampered by long supplies lines and lack of local support, even from crown loyalists, lost the war despite winning most of the battles.
What seems like a common complaint of mine: I didn’t like the maps.
Of interest to fans of the series: the book jacket contains the original publishing schedule for the OHOTUS indicating the series which still is missing several volumes should have been completed more than a decade ago and that several of the original authors have been replaced.
Chapter Three’s explanation of the sugar act is confusing.
The Connecticut charter which was issued in 1662 provided that the colony’s western boundary should be the Pacific Ocean. (104)
With army horses and wagons scarce, civilians-- merchants, drayers, and others -- hot to be relied on, and these men, in business for themselves, frequently had better paying uses for their transport. (414)
[During the march to Monmouth Court House] Their soldiers carried packs of at least sixty pounds, weight made especially difficult to bear by sandy roads, woolen uniforms, and cumbersome muskets. The Hessians, who wore even heavier clothing than the English, suffered the most, several dying of sunstroke along the way. (422)
A virtuous people, most Americans agreed, were a people who valued frugality, despised luxury, hated corruption, and preferred moderations and balance to extremes of any sort, especially in the orders of society. (651)
Author: Robert Midlekauff 1982 664 pp
My rating: 3*
Started January 20 2009, Finished February 20 2009.
This book is the fourth volume of The Oxford History of the United States which I’ve read, and by far the least satisfying. While the others (Battle Cry of Freedom, What Hath God Wrought and Freedom From Fear) where characterized by a straightforward, succinct and fact-filled-I-have-to-restraint-myself-not-to-make-a-note-on-every-single-page style, The Glorious Cause was just the opposite: unlike the others, it could have been much shorter and I found its prose style, which seemed to slightly mimic the rhetoric of the period it described, generally long winded and confusing. Why I can unhesitatingly recommend the other three volumes as supremely informative, engrossing and authoritative histories, after I finished this one I felt like I hadn’t learned that much about the era. One thing I did come away from the book with, in a lesson that reverberates today, was the notion that the British, hampered by long supplies lines and lack of local support, even from crown loyalists, lost the war despite winning most of the battles.
What seems like a common complaint of mine: I didn’t like the maps.
Of interest to fans of the series: the book jacket contains the original publishing schedule for the OHOTUS indicating the series which still is missing several volumes should have been completed more than a decade ago and that several of the original authors have been replaced.
Chapter Three’s explanation of the sugar act is confusing.
The Connecticut charter which was issued in 1662 provided that the colony’s western boundary should be the Pacific Ocean. (104)
With army horses and wagons scarce, civilians-- merchants, drayers, and others -- hot to be relied on, and these men, in business for themselves, frequently had better paying uses for their transport. (414)
[During the march to Monmouth Court House] Their soldiers carried packs of at least sixty pounds, weight made especially difficult to bear by sandy roads, woolen uniforms, and cumbersome muskets. The Hessians, who wore even heavier clothing than the English, suffered the most, several dying of sunstroke along the way. (422)
A virtuous people, most Americans agreed, were a people who valued frugality, despised luxury, hated corruption, and preferred moderations and balance to extremes of any sort, especially in the orders of society. (651)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)