I recently read *Nona the Ninth* and this exchange occurred when I posted my thoughts on it:
>Interesting that John is, at once, environmental destruction, death, child predation, imperialism, and religion, but not really actually *patriarchy*, and *explicitly not* capitalism. I’m the kind of person to be grateful for that last bit, even if it does seem out of place with the whole ethos, but really, am I just missing a dimension or should there be more gender commentary? I guess maybe it’s an AFAB thing I’m too non-passing to have any social understanding of what Muir’s trying to say.
To which I got the response:
>Should there be more gender commentary.
>Should there be *more* gender commentary.
>Like, more gender commentary than there is in the book where the a woman inhabits the body of her dead, male friend and calls herself “daddy.” More than the one male and one female person ALSO sharing a body, and apparently not finding that their identities are affected by their container. More than The Saint of Awe puppeting her dead, male cavalier’s body to criticize her twin sister’s skin care. More than Malibu Hair Barbie.
>I kind of think maybe something else should fit in the page sometimes?.
I said
>I’m not saying it wasn’t saying things about gender, I’m just saying it seemed to be taking a strong position on a lot of generally-seen-as-aligned structures, and that thus it seems like it should be taking more of a *position* on gender than I saw it as having, rather than just the unabashedly beautiful, varied, and wonderfully progressive *depiction* so far, and that I was wondering if I was missing something that would coalesce it into a *statement*.
And got the reply:
>The depiction IS a statement.
This entire exchange has just really shaken my faith in my ability to contribute anything meaningful. Like, the *Ninth* books are very good books (the carefully layered parallels to Lolita and the Author’s own sexual trauma prove that much), but they’re still meant for teens, they’re not exactly fucking difficult. Like how do I miss something that badly.
I couldn’t discern the most basic fucking themes of a particularly deep children’s book. So… I’m considering quitting media consumption period outside of college-assigned material. Like I genuinely think if my takes are this bad, I shouldn’t subject other people to them, or even have them? Like I probably couldn’t catch the themes of Bringing Up fucking Baby, why the hell am I watching it? I clearly haven’t helped media consumption, and it hasn’t helped me.
Tell me what you think.
by cope_a_cabana
3 Comments
> I’m considering quitting media consumption period outside of college-assigned material
What? There’s “overreacting to something you read online”, and then there’s “I’m quitting *reading books for leisure* entirely because of a single exchange on Reddit.
*Everyone* gets something different out of books! Don’t let having a different takeaway from a book take away all other books from your life!
> Like, the Ninth books are very good books (the carefully layered parallels to Lolita and the Author’s own sexual trauma prove that much), but they’re still meant for teens
Young protagonists do not a children’s book make.
> Like I genuinely think if my takes are this bad, I shouldn’t subject other people to them
Stop self-flagellating – it’s not helpful – and read around a subject if you feel you don’t have the grounding to get what you want out of it. Gender, environment, history, religion, those texts are available.
Usually when it comes to social commentary, a lot of people can miss the nuances unless they are particularly into reading books with them. It can also be related to life experiences where some people might miss some of the subtleties in the actions of characters or telling of the events, but others might be able to catch up on them if they had something similar that impacted their life.
I don’t know what you usually read or what books are your favourite, what your preferred genres are, where you grew up or how you view gender or sexuality issues to answer your question.
However, I can tell you that, discussions like the one you had are what will improve your ability to see depictions even if they don’t relate to you. I don’t think you are too dumb or anything, but in fact, because you questioned something and had a discussion over it, you might spot it easier next time around. That is also what makes bookclubs great!