Reading Wednesday, creepy misogyny edition

[sabotabby]

Oooh, I've been looking forward to this day for a bit.

Recently finished: Storm Front by Jim Butcher.

My dudes. My dudes. This book is so bad. I mean, I kept reading it so it couldn't be that bad, but it somehow was. Even the title is bad. Did Butcher just not think of the...er...usual association of that phrase? Or is it just my antifa ass and other people don't immediately think of neo-Nazis? The author's pseudonym is bad. At least, I hope it's a pseudonym because the alternative is "unto Mr. and Mrs. Butcher, a son, Jim."

A bit of background: I've never read any of the Dresden Files books. This may come as a shock as, on paper, they're up my alley: gritty urban fantasy, long black dusters, magic, etc. Given what I'm currently writing, it's sort of obligatory for me to at least be aware of what's in these books so that I don't do the same exact thing. Eh, so, if like me you've been living under a rock and never heard of these, Harry Dresden is a wizard PI who helps the cops and random civilians solve magic-related crimes. Okay, so far so good. It's not an original idea, but in theory that kind of thing should be hard to fuck up.

Except that I spent the entire novel, which was mercifully not very long, hoping that Dresden would die and get replaced by literally any other character. I hated him so much. Part of the problem is that it's first-person POV, which is not my favourite to begin with, but it meant that I had to spend the entire story inside his head, and inside his head is a gross place and I wanted to take a shower after. He is just such a misogynist twerp. Which might have been okay, in that he's a bit of a noir archetype and noir archetypes skew towards misogyny, but he is also quite shitty at being noir. He says "gosh." What sort of grizzled, cynical PI says "gosh"? New rule: If you create a character who wears a duster and has a talking skull (seriously by all accounts I should have loved this book) and hates women, let him swear for fuck's sake.

Anyway other than the main character it was actually pretty entertaining. Like if the book had been from the POV of 1) the main cop character, 2) the talking skull, or 3) the large cat, I would have probably liked it. Will I read the other ones? That depends on whether anyone can tell me if Dresden gets less loathsome.

Currently reading: Cockroach by Rawi Hage. This one is also a first-person POV about a misogynistic twerp but I like it a lot more, mainly because it's better written and I'm certain the narrator is meant to be horrible. I wanted to read something a bit more literary to compensate for the loss of brain cells reading Storm Front, and I just randomly picked this from a Canada Reads list because most of the other books had descriptions that made me want to give up on literary fiction as a genre. ("A gripping novel that takes the reader on a magical journey from Timbuktu to Norway to the Canadian Prairies, The Vivisectionist's Daughter is a celebration of love, laughter, and the resilience of the human spirit" who the fuck writes these things? Dear publishers: hire me and I'll write you a blurb that makes someone other than your mom's book club want to read it.)

Anyway the protagonist of Cockroach hates himself just slightly more than he hates women, so at least there's that. An immigrant from an Unnamed Middle Eastern Country that's Lebanon, he's impoverished and miserable in Montreal and has recently attempted suicide, only to fail because he couldn't find a strong enough branch. So now he's in therapy. And fantasizes about turning into a cockroach, a la Gregor Samsa. It took me a while to get into it, mainly because the narrator is such a vile shit, but it's very well-written and I'm really into the way the author twists the imagery of existential literature, which despite its general leftism is very much a product of French colonialism, to tell the story of the underclass produced by that same system. I don't know if I love it, but it's worth reading.

Comments

[dewline]

I know enough of the Dresden Files to be disinterested in the series to begin with. This one seems...well, glad I've been avoiding the series in general anyway.

[sabotabby]

It might get better? But the first one didn't make me really want to keep reading.

[dewline]

I have no advice for you here. If it does get better, I can't tell you. We might have mutual friendlisters who can speak to that.

[notasupervillain]

Not that I recommend attempting another go at a novel that you rightfully call out but: The James Marsters audiobook version MAKES IT WORK. I swear I'm not crazy. Okay, I am. But James Marsters.

[sabotabby]

I could almost see it working in any other media. Like, it's a decent cool mystery with decent worldbuilding. If it was a TV show and Dresden kept his thoughts about women to himself, I might legitimately enjoy it.

[notasupervillain]

Wait until an Angel asks him about his opinions on homosexuality. That's when he really shines as a human.

[sabotabby]

oh no

oh

no

Are you saying that I have to hate-read them all?

[notasupervillain]

I couldn't possibly say that.

ETA: Remember how Sujay tried to hook up with Ian and he was all "no" but in a nice way because he really cares about her? Imagine that Ian was too self-righteous to hook up with Sujay, but was attempting to figure out what non-sexual act would make him the most despicable human being possible.

[sabotabby]

Is this in an early book or a later book asking for a friend

who wants to know for

research purposes

and maybe to make a dumb crossover fanfic where my protagonist punches his protagonist except she's really not the punchy type, unfortunately.

[notasupervillain]

Later book. Like, only a few back. One of his good friend's daughters needs mentoring in magic. He's known her since she was a kid. She's got trauma. She looks up to him.

He waits till she strips and pours ice water on her head.

I think Sujay would make an exception.

[sabotabby]

OH GROSS EWWW

Yeah, so Sujay's style, when she is inevitably required by events to be violent, is "cast a glamour so no one sees her coming, sneak up, then shoot the bad guy in the back of the head and run away." Her nails are typically too long and carefully maintained to throw a punch. But she would make an exception.

[notasupervillain]

Dear Sujay,

Long nails are really great for stabbing people in the eyes. Also, if someone goes to shake your hand, it takes only a bit of training to learn how to turn that into an incredibly painful wrist lock. I'd be happy to show you.

Sincerely,
A Friend

[sabotabby]

She clearly needs a better mentor. :)

[notasupervillain]

I would happily adopt Sujay if I could. Though not into my fic, because I don't think she's cut out for the Supervillain life.

[sabotabby]

She wouldn't last 6 months. Well, not current Sujay, anyway.

[notasupervillain]

Whereas Ian would find himself right at home.

[sabotabby]

Ian can throw a punch and has the requisite low opinion of human nature, but behold how well he reacted to his own fate being set in stone; imagine how he would absolutely not cope in a deterministic universe.

[grimjim]

The first Dresden Files book appears to have been published in 2000. Some things don't age well.

There was a television adaptation that I never watched, and an RPG which I never bought.

Not that long ago I reread some Raymond Chandler. The racism and sexism and other stereotyping was jarring to my modern sensibilities. I expect noir source material to be problematic as a rule.

[sabotabby]

The thing with noir is that, for the most part, the gritty misogynist detective characters are supposed to be assholes. While I didn't get the sense that Dresden was supposed to be an asshole. I really like noir as a genre, problematic tropes and all (and I can go on at great length about the subversive potential of the femme fatale archetype); my issue is when someone evokes the tropes without going all the way with them.

It'd totally work as an RPG, I bet.

[ironed_orchid]

::cough:: Walter Mosley ::cough::

[minoanmiss]

I love your commentary.

On the one hand the book's from 2000. OTOH I have not heard of anything that makes me want to try anything more recent of his, even the admittedly epic image of someone reanimating and riding a T-rex skeleton. Nor did the TV show, which I actually tried because urban fantasy.

[sabotabby]

I've read books by male authors from the 1930s that had a better grasp of female characters, tbh. 2000 is only 19 years ago.

I'd read on for a T-rex skeleton, though; that fucking rocks.

[gingicat]

I reread Ellery Queen recently. I was tempted to flush it down the toilet, but I didn’t want to waste the water on having to do only a couple of pages at a time.

[curgoth]

AFAIK, Jim Butcher is his actual birth name.

The first 2-3 books are pretty terrible. They get better, and some of the women characters are actually pretty well written, and there's some serious emotional weight to the later books.

HOWEVER!

It's become clear that the sexism isn't Harry's it's Butcher's - he thinks he's writing a good, decent man who treats women properly. I have this third hand through the RPG rumour mill, so take that for what it's worth.

He's also a puppy. Either a sad puppy or a rabid one, not sure which, but there's an excerpt from one of their Hugo-rigging chats that includes Butcher, and it's clear he isn't on the side of the SJWs.

I haven't been willing to give him any money since that, which is sad, because I quite liked the later Dresden books.

[sabotabby]

That's really the root of the problem; with Cockroach, I'm feeling like I'm reading a book about a character who's a misogynist. Maybe he shares some of the author's opinions and experiences, maybe not, but it's a voice that's very distinct from how the author likely speaks and thinks. Whereas in Dresden, I'm not getting much distinction between Dresden's opinions and Butcher's. Not surprising that he's a puppy.

[curgoth]

That's it exactly - the sinking suspicion that the author doesn't know his (and it's usually his) character is a giant asshole. I'm realizing that Patrick Rothfuss isn't playing as deep a game in his writing of women as I had hoped either.

[dagibbs]

I've read a couple of the Dresden files (I think about 2.5) because I bought 3 of them on someone's recommendation (2nd-hand, thankfully). I lost book 3 part way through reading it, and regret that not at all, since it means I didn't have to finish it.

At least in the first 2.5 books he doesn't get any better.

[sabotabby]

Good to know.

[ironed_orchid]

I read an excerpt of a Harry Dresden book once and a few loltastic reviews and decided that they were definitely not for me. Which is good because there are too many books out there I want to read to waste my time.

At least Cockroach sounds kinda interesting.

[sabotabby]

It is pretty interesting. I'd like to read it in a book club consisting of me and my 14-year-old internalized misogynistic self who adored existentialist literature.

I would be v. keen to read said loltastic reviews if you still have access to them.

[ironed_orchid]

I think they were on LJ circa 2005, so no way to know if they still exist, even if I could remember who wrote them.

[gingicat]

I confess that I read most of them (and hid one of them because the cover would have triggered roommate’s phobia) but IMO the middle books were okay and then they kept getting WORSE. I gave up when he became a thrall to the Summer Queen.

I would love a book from the point of view of his vampire brother, or his woman cop friend, or his apprentice, written by someone else.

[sabotabby]

It's a cool universe. But seriously, any other POV character at all.

[dancingdragon3]

Cockroach sounds very interesting, but also would probably drive me into fits of obsessively negative thoughts.

I bought Storm Front for pretty much the same reason, but haven't read it yet. For the record, I did not get the NeoNazi connection, but I don't know much about them. I'll still probably read it, again, for the same reason.

[sabotabby]

I'm glad I'm not horrifically depressed while reading Cockroach. Though tbh the narrator's depression and mine are quite different.

Please read Storm Front; I'm dying to hear your take!

[lapinlunaire]

Cockroach sounds interesting, thank you for the rec.

Storm Front is a part of the Dresden Files series, right? That series has always sounded like garbage to me and I guess I'm not alone in this. I just have 0 patience for what sounds like cliché urban fantasy with a walking manifestation of manpain as the protagonist. Life is just too short.

I don't think you have to read something just because it's in the genre you're writing. I'm 100% sure you wouldn't somehow accidentally write something like the Dresden Files because you don't suck.

EDIT: By the way, your last paragraph reminds me. Have you read the Meursault Investigation? It sounds like something you'd like.

[sabotabby]

It is part of the Dresden Files. I suppose in my universe, cliché urban fantasy exists, and inevitably my gangly, broody wizard character who would absolutely wear a duster if he could find one/get away with it and who has Issues with Women (albeit not because they won't sleep with him) would inevitably get a Harry Dresden reference by some of the nerdier characters. He's meant to be an asshole, though.

I haven't read the Meursault Investigation. Should I?

[xturtle]

Ouch, Storm Front. I read it on recommendation of a dude back before I started cross checking recommendations from guy friends with other women.

Also, I had to finish it anyway. I suspect magic.

[sabotabby]

Cross-checking dudely recommendations is a great idea. Though women have recommended this to me too, with the caveat that I would hate the main character. This said, it was very readable.