|
|
|
Two novels about eighteen-year-old women who abandon the advantages of their previous identities to make common cause with oppressed peoples, at great risk to themselves. In the first, set in 2000, Aden travels from a secular society in California to study Islam, and to join the jihad. In the second, set in 1944, Luce leaves her bourgeois family in Italy to experience first-hand the Nazi labour camps. Are these rebellious adolescents idealists or deluded, or a little of both?
8 Comments
My real-world promotion of World Toilet Day yesterday was somewhat eclipsed by a surprise conversation about #MeToo. Surprise because, having personally experienced only “mild” forms of unwanted sexual attention, I hadn’t jumped on this particular bandwagon, the conversation left me feeling I should have. After all, one doesn’t have to have experienced direct gender discrimination to be a feminist. One shouldn’t have to have experienced the trauma of rape to oppose the culture of misogyny that so often enables it.
 How quickly time moves on in politics if I can go, in under three weeks, from hoping that someone will speak out for diversity and social justice to relief we’ve someone who doesn’t come across like an embarrassing uncle (or, in my case, nephew) to negotiate us out of the EU. When the country appears on the brink of Trumpification, I’m grateful for crumbs of sanity wherever they arise. So thank you, Theresa May, for enabling the speedy departure of the chump who gambled his own and his country’s future on a game of dice with his backbenchers, although I feel for the Campbell children having to move house with so little time to pack their toys. As for Andrea Leasdom’s own goal against childless women (of which I’ll have more to say at a later date), all she’s done is demonstrate she’s in politics, not for our collective futures, but for the sake of the genes that will live on in her offspring after her death.
 As I’ve mentioned before, I was surprised when a literary agent who turned down my debut novel did so because the sample I’d sent her was written in the first person present tense. But if you read for a living, being familiar with your preferences and prejudices can save a lot of time. After all, we can’t all appreciate the same thing. Reading for reviews is helping me clarify my own likes and dislikes although, despite the title of this post, a sense of accountability to publishers who’ve provided me a free copy and a belief in the value of diversity will see me rarely abandoning a book. (I think I ditched three out of well over 100 books I read last year.) But since “11 reasons I don’t want to read your book” has a nasty ring to it, for the purposes of this post I’m extending the definition of “abandon” to encompass books I’m not even tempted to start. Practical or blinkered, considered or arbitrary, undoubtedly contradictory, in reverse order of annoyingness, these are my 11 reasons I won’t give a novel my time.
|
Annecdotal is where real life brushes up against the fictional.
Annecdotist is the blogging persona of Anne Goodwin:
reader, writer, slug-slayer, tramper of moors, recovering psychologist, struggling soprano, author of two novels. 
My second novel published
May 2017.
My debut novel shortlisted for Polari First Book Prize
LATEST POSTS HERE
I don't post to a schedule, but average around ten reviews a month (see here for an alphabetical list), some linked to a weekly flash fiction, plus posts on writing and my journey to publication and beyond. Your comments are welcome any time any where. Get new posts direct to your inbox ...
or click here …
Subscribe to my newsletter for updates 3-4 times a year.
Popular posts
Looking for something in particular? Sorry the blog has no search facility, but typing Annecdotal plus the keyword into Google usually works.
Or try one of these: Categories/Tags
All
Archives
April 2019
BLOGGING COMMUNITIES
I'm honoured to receive these blog awards:
but no more, thanks, your comments are awesome enough
|
RSS Feed
