Bell Jar (Photo credit: Stephen Cummings)

I’ve just finished a book today that I’ve been meaning to read for a number of years: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

Esther Greenwood is at college and is fighting two battles, one against her own desire for perfection in all things – grades, boyfriend, looks, career – and the other against remorseless mental illness. As her depression deepens she finds herself encased in it, bell-jarred away from the rest of the world. This is the story of her journey back into reality. Highly readable, witty and disturbing, The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath’s only novel and was originally published under a pseudonym in 1963. What it has to say about what women expect of themselves, and what society expects of women, is as sharply relevant today as it has always been.

I’m glad the book club I’ve just joined has chosen to read this book, since, like I said, I’ve been wanting to read it. I enjoyed the book, though I’m unsure whether it lives up to the hype that I held it to. There’s some good passages and it does explore societal expectations of women and Esther’s reaction to them, which of course is traumatic. I probably would have found this more poignant if I read this in my teens but now that I’m just (barely) out of them I didn’t always quite relate to the character.

I’m glad I read it though. I’m going to have to refer to some study questions to really have a think about it, but it was decent, easy to read, sometimes funny, oftentimes sad. I’d recommend it to those who are interested in depression.

When literature student Anastasia Steele interviews successful entrepreneur Christian Grey, she finds him very attractive and deeply intimidating. Convinced that their meeting went badly, she tries to put him out of her mind – until he turns up at the store where she works part-time, and invites her out.

Unworldly and innocent, Ana is shocked to find she wants this man. And, when he warns her to keep her distance, it only makes her want him more.

But Grey is tormented by inner demons, and consumed by the need to control. As they embark on a passionate love affair, Ana discovers more about her own desires, as well as the dark secrets Grey keeps hidden away from public view .

Yeah.. this is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. Possibly THE worst. I expected it too, after reading that first excerpt. And it’s apparently now being made into a movie.

I did want to be wrong about this book because despite how terrible it is, I absolutely LOVE that women are able to read erotic fiction, especially ‘taboo’ erotic fiction, in public! I can’t think of any other erotic book that has been so popular. There are few times that I go onto public transport that I don’t see at least one woman openly reading the book. Because it IS widely known to be erotica, and because I hate the sterilisation of sex within society, this really excites me.

Throughout the beginning I was constantly thinking, ‘This book is like Twilight, but with BDSM instead of vampires’. After doing light research on the book, I found that it is, in fact, a fan fiction of Twilight. It has the same weak characters and characterisation, same horrible inner dialogue, same general themes, and the stories both unfold in the same way. James uses many themes and phrases to the point of cliche and banality (e.g. ‘Oh my…’, ‘Holy __!’, ‘My inner goddess’, lip biting, obscure opera and classical music, etc).

I don’t mind erotica when it’s done correctly, and the sex depicted in this was just horrendous. Although the clitoris is sometimes mentioned, it isn’t the main part of Anastasia’s sexual pleasure. This is so ridiculous and unrealistic, as very few women ever orgasm just from PiV. And then I just find it strange that every single time Anastasia orgasms, Christian orgasms straight afterward. It’s just portraying really unrealistic sex, even it being a work of fiction. The great majority of the sex scenes aren’t even that arousing, and I have read my fair share of X-rated (fan) fiction to know. And I personally wonder how realistic the BDSM aspect of the relationship is, though because I have little working knowledge of the BDSM community, I can’t comment on that.

Despite all of this I did actually want to know what happened. I’m horrible, I know. But it just turned out to be hilarious and horrible and horrendous. Essentially, it’s the Troll 2 of erotica.

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The story is ostensibly a simple one: having suffered a tremendous personal loss, an 18th-century Louisiana plantation owner named Louis Pointe du Lac descends into an alcoholic stupor. At his emotional nadir, he is confronted by Lestat, a charismatic and powerful vampire who chooses Louis to be his fledgling. The two prey on innocents, give their “dark gift” to a young girl, and seek out others of their kind (notably the ancient vampire Armand) in Paris. But a summary of this story bypasses the central attractions of the novel. First and foremost, the method Rice chose to tell her tale–with Louis’ first-person confession to a skeptical boy–transformed the vampire from a hideous predator into a highly sympathetic, seductive, and all-too-human figure. Second, by entering the experience of an immortal character, one raised with a deep Catholic faith, Rice was able to explore profound philosophical concerns–the nature of evil, the reality of death, and the limits of human perception–in ways not possible from the perspective of a more finite narrator.

I have read The Vampire Lestat before, when I was around 14. Although Interview is the first of the series, it seems a bit like a standalone. I much prefer The Vampire Lestat, it’s beautiful and remains one of my favourite books. This one is good, but so far my least favourite of Rice’s books (admittedly this is only the 4th I’ve read). Louis is at times a sympathetic character, but often he whines insufferably. But, Louis never really wanted to be a vampire, so you can expect someone who is not a killer and does not want it to complain a lot.

Interview with the Vampire is really just a taster of Anne Rice’s world. Probably not the best taster of all, but you can expect a lot of the characters and themes to come back up, and the world to become much more immersive.

I’ve given in and going to read Fifty Shades of Grey, even though I’ve read a 2 chapter preview of it and it was so horribly written. I want to be able to tell people how bad it is. That might be pretentious.

Cover of The Sociopath Next Door

I’ve just finished The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout.

We are accustomed to think of sociopaths as violent criminals, but in The Sociopath Next Door, Harvard psychologist Martha Stout reveals that a shocking 4 percent of ordinary people—one in twenty-five—has an often undetected mental disorder, the chief symptom of which is that that person possesses no conscience. He or she has no ability whatsoever to feel shame, guilt, or remorse. One in twenty-five everyday Americans, therefore, is secretly a sociopath. They could be your colleague, your neighbor, even family. And they can do literally anything at all and feel absolutely no guilt.

The fact is, we all almost certainly know at least one or more sociopaths already. Part of the urgency in reading The Sociopath Next Door is the moment when we suddenly recognize that someone we know—someone we worked for, or were involved with, or voted for—is a sociopath. But what do we do with that knowledge? To arm us against the sociopath, Dr. Stout teaches us to question authority, suspect flattery, and beware the pity play. Above all, she writes, when a sociopath is beckoning, do not join the game.

It wasn’t unlike The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, which was another very good book about a similar personality disorder. I may have actually enjoyed this one more. Martha Stout isn’t as funny as Jon Ronson, but she’s incredibly informative and pulls her explanations from a long history of counseling the victims of sociopaths. She profiles many sociopathic archetypes, from the business tycoon who’s pushed many people down to get where he is to the lay-about moocher. She tells stories of how it’s really hard to know someone really. She also goes into the research around what makes a sociopath, to what extent is it genetic, and also where we as humans obtain conscience.

In all I really enjoyed the book. It is full of information you probably didn’t know, and is easily understandable. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in personality disorders or conscience/morality.

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I read a lot yesterday and finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

Charlie is a freshman. And while he’s not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it. Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But Charlie can’t stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

I read this book when I was about 15, so I wasn’t sure whether I should count it, but I figured if I took the time out to re-read it, especially since its been 6 years, I might as well. Maybe that’s cheating, but I wanted to see if it would stand up to when I read it when my taste in books was a bit less mature. Also, the film based on the book is coming out sometime this or next year, which stars Emma Watson as Sam, so I wanted to remember what exactly the book was like since I’ll definitely be going to the film at least on opening night, if not a midnight showing.

As much as I could see it a bit silly, I still really like the book. I don’t know if Charlie is a very believable character, but you start to understand his overwhelming sweetness and naivete at the end of the book: he has a secret he’s even hiding from himself. Beyond the sweetness of the book it’s a really interesting story of a boy trying to make it in high school and somehow being pulled into a group of people much older than he is.

It is formatted as a series of letters written to a ‘friend’, someone who he actually doesn’t know but who he heard of that supposedly was a very good person and would listen. It can get quite rambly and out of place, but that’s the nature of letters I guess. Because of this nature also, it can be quite introspective which might not translate well to film. You might not be able to quite understand how Charlie is thinking. It’ll be interesting to see whether they can get the sort of inner dialogue to show on camera to portray Charlie the correct way (though maybe hopefully they’ll portray him slightly less sickeningly sweet).

I was pleased to see there were a lot of feminist undertones to the book that I didn’t quite catch when I read it the first time. Many of the characters are quite feminist and aren’t portrayed that way to demonise them. Though very few feminist issues came up, feminism was an interest to many of the female characters and Charlie reacted in certain ways because of the feminist feelings being bestowed onto him. It’s not an incredibly important part to the book, but I enjoyed seeing that.

Overall I can see why I liked the book when I first read it. It’s a bit too young for me, but like I still appreciate Harry Potter, I still appreciate Perks.

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For 15-year-old Michael Berg, a chance meeting with an older woman leads to far more than he ever imagined. The woman in question is Hanna, and before long they embark on a passionate, clandestine love affair which leaves Michael both euphoric and confused. For Hanna is not all she seems. Years later, as a law student observing a trial in Germany, Michael is shocked to realize that the person in the dock is Hanna. The woman he had loved is a criminal. Much about her behaviour during the trial does not make sense. But then suddenly, and terribly, it does – Hanna is not only obliged to answer for a horrible crime, she is also desperately concealing an even deeper secret.

The book is a bit slow in parts, but I really liked it a lot. Michael is the first German generation after the Holocaust, and it’s a story based on the difficulty in generations afterward to both fully understand and fully demonise what happened in their country, what their own parents and grandparents did or let happen. It’s based all on this relationship, but the theme of guilt and shame is overwhelming within the book.

It’s a very accessible book, and there are many passages which have some really profound ideas within them.

I’m currently in the middle of a book I read when I was 15 and I’m not sure if I should count it. Because it’s been 6 years, I probably will be cheeky and count it

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But I finished the book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang, a Korean economist.

Thing 1: There is no such thing as free market.
Thing 4: The washing machine has changed the world more than the Internet.
Thing 5: Assume the worst about people, and you get the worst.
Thing 13: Making rich people richer doesn’t make the rest of us richer.

If you’ve wondered how we did not see the economic collapse coming, Ha-Joon Chang knows the answer: We didn’t ask what they didn’t tell us about capitalism. This is a lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to question the assumptions behind the dogma and sheer hype that the dominant school of neoliberal economists-the apostles of the freemarket-have spun since the Age of Reagan.

Prejudice is an irrational feeling of dislike for a person or group of persons, usually based on stereotype.  Virtually everyone feels some sort of prejudice, whether it’s for an ethnic group, or for a religious group, or for a type of person like blondes or fat people or tall people.  The important thing is they just don’t like them — in short, prejudice is a feeling, a belief.  You can be prejudiced, but still be a fair person if you’re careful not to act on your irrational dislike.

Discrimination takes place the moment a person acts on prejudice.  This describes those moments when one individual decides not to give another individual a job because of, say, their race or their religious orientation.  Or even because of their looks (there’s a lot of hiring discrimination against “unattractive” women, for example).  You can discriminate, individually, against any person or group, if you’re in a position of power over the person you want to discriminate against.  White people can discriminate against black people, and black people can discriminate against white people if, for example, one is the interviewer and the other is the person being interviewed.

Racism, however, describes patterns of discrimination that are institutionalized as “normal” throughout an entire culture. It’s based on an ideological belief that one “race” is somehow better than another “race”.  It’s not one person discriminating at this point, but a whole population operating in a social structure that actually makes it difficult for a person not to discriminate.

Both men and women are participate in constant body work. However, I’d argue that for women, the work required in order to be an accepted member of society is a much more rigid, unyielding version. Michel Foucault once spoke of the process in which individuals become objects, or docile bodies, through processes of self-surveillance based on discourses of what is considered normal and abnormal². Feminism critiques Foucault’s gender-neutral version of docile bodies, as women’s bodies are expected to be more docile.

Modern femininity is linked with three restrictions of the body which modern masculinity is not. First, femininity is characterised by smallness of body. Women are not meant to take up more space than required, therefore women who do not conform to this are chastised, if not by people around her then by the rest of society. Second, femininity entails a certain reluctance in gesture, movement, and posture. The final way, and the way I’ll actually be discussing, is by the necessity of ornamentation. This includes the pressure to wear makeup, have good skin care, have good hair care, and get rid of body hair³.

Makeup, therefore, is politicised by the feminist movement. The daily process of makeup is expensive, time consuming, and probably unhealthy. It perpetuates the idea that in order to be desired, a woman must be made up. Even now a lot of men say they prefer women without makeup, but I wonder how many of them are tricked into believing ‘no makeup-makeup’ is actually a clean face. Slightly deceitful, and raises the bar too high.

However!

I wear makeup. And I love makeup. And sometimes that comes with a bit of guilt. Mostly it comes with an empty wallet. Yes, I have a problem, and I’m taking steps to fix it. However I don’t honestly think that wearing makeup makes a person any less feminist, even if the makeup process is oppressive. I’m not going to sit here and say I freely choose to wear makeup. I don’t think I do. But when reading on other people’s opinions about feminism and makeup I found this:

You can’t socialize someone into liking something and then ostracize them for liking it. ⁴

Obviously feminists understand that gender roles and the gender binary are socially constructed (Some people don’t like the idea that gender itself is socially constructed, though I would argue that it is. I think a lot of people who disagree probably haven’t studied too much sociology. Maybe I’ll write about it another time.). It is immensely important to understand the process by which this happens, and I believe many feminists take the work into trying to piece it together. It is also so important to challenge these norms and to create dialogue about why we do and think certain things. It’s SO important, as a feminist, to critically examine your reason for doing certain things. I wear makeup because I was socialised to. I was socialised to enjoy the ritual, and I do enjoy it. I haven’t gotten to the point of self-love where I’ve been able to fully forgo my foundation and mascara.

It is fundamentally and horribly wrong to criticise any woman for wearing makeup or for not wearing makeup. We need to criticise our own choices and be real with ourselves. I could sit here and say I choose makeup freely because I know the negatives and do it anyway, but by saying that I believe we’re trying to differentiate ourselves from non-feminist identifying women who wear makeup. By othering non-feminist women, we’re saying they’re under a false consciousness (which they may well be), when one never knows whether that person does think about the negatives but still chooses it. For all anyone knows, our thought processes are similar.

We need to teach radical self-love, and there is a conflict when the person teaching it has perfectly coifed hair and a beautifully made up face. But we shouldn’t blame women for wanting these things when we’ve been told to want them from the moment the doctor looked between our legs at birth. Feminism should not succumb to self-righteousness, but embrace sympathy and empathy and keep teaching informed analysis.

References

¹ Makeup, and Feminist Guilt, at 13
² Nash, K. (2010) Contemporary Political Sociology. p22-23.
³ Bartky, S.L. (1988) ‘Foucault, Femininity, and Patriarchal Power’ in Diamond, I. and Quinby, L. (eds) Feminism and Foucault. p.65-71.
⁴ Warning: Feminist Wearing Makeup Ahead. Look Both Ways Before Crossing.

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The Handmaid's Tale (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve finished a book. I’ve had a lot of deadlines for uni so haven’t had much motivation to read in the times that I could chill out. But I’ve finally finished The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are only valued if their ovaries are viable.

Offred can remember the days before, when she lived and made love with her husband Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now….

Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid’s Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.

Ahh I loved it! It is an extravagant extrapolation and I wouldn’t consider it something that could happen, but you can see small truths in it. I think it’s interesting how the Aunts emphasised being free from, rather than free to. Of course this is a feminist critique of religious ideology, but I think it also puts into perspective the fact that although what some conservative religious fanatics want for women is horrible, they themselves do see what they do as something for women. For example banning of pornography might help to de-objectify women and lead to less sexual violence. I’m not saying that’s true, but it’s the logic they might use.

Overall I enjoyed the book. It was an exaggeration, it was satire, and it was beautifully so.