vivian_m_anderson's reviews
124 reviews

wow. wow. even more incredible on a reread than on the first read. my obsession with beauty as a theme leaves me simply obsessed with this book; toni morrison the woman you are!

not especially profound, but a wonderfully written and extremely clever mystery! i could not in any world put together a mystery how agatha christie has, and i envy her ability to visualize the many twists and turns that occur along the nile. oh, and hercule poirot is really rather charming. perhaps and then there were none next?

truly a triumph of a novel. it is just the perfect length; not so long that it drags on, but just long enough to watch the infection of dorian gray's "pure" soul. deep and profound, with insightful takes on a myriad of subjects, but still witty and at times perfectly clear. we all know i have an obsession with beauty, and thus i found the central theme of beauty absolutely fascinating in this novel. oh, and not to mention its wonderfully and obviously homoerotic. next doppelganger story on my list: the double by dostoevsky!

quote to highlight (though there were many amazing ones): "There was a horrible fascination in them all. He saw them at night, and they troubled his imagination in the day. The Renaissance knew of strange manners of poisoning—poisoning by a helmet and a lighted torch, by an embroidered glove and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander and by an amber chain. Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful."

short and sweet, but i was a bit too sick to really engage with the material. would like to read more of her stuff though!

remarkably prescient for the time, and wonderfully short.

"nowadays not even a suicide kills himself in desperation. before taking the step he deliberates so long and so carefully that he literally chokes with with thought. it is even questionable whether he ought to be called a suicide, since it is really thought which takes his life. he does not die with deliberation but from deliberation."

truly fabulous, though challenging all the same. as a woman and queer person who has already had not the best experience with healthcare and who anticipates more challenges arising as i enter young adulthood, it resonates powerfully.

"i shook in the shower & i shook in the kitchen & i shook at the doctors & i shook on the sidewalk &
i shook a strangers hand--it was moving. there was an aftershock. a casual conversation."

I was waffling between giving it a 4.25 and a 4.5 for a while, but ultimately landed on a 4.5 for even though I didn't enjoy reading it quite as much as I enjoyed reading, say, Parable of the Talents (which I gave a 4.5), the overall concept of the novel is perhaps even more interesting! The whole theme of alienness is fascinating, and I would've loved to discuss this book in school or a book club with other people. What would it be like for someone who doesn't know possession, capitalism, or money at all to be thrust into those concepts and the effects they have on a society? I particularly liked the back and forth chapter structure, as seeing things develop simultaneously in the "past" on Anarres and the "present" on Urras made for very effective story development and left some things mysteries until the novel's end. The only downfall for me was at times, the physics concepts got a bit too dense and convoluted, but I think that says more about my struggles with physics (and sci-fi, for that matter) than it does about Le Guin's fabulous novel. Hope to read more of her work soon!

a really, really good book--i'm very tempted to give it 4.75 stars, and I might end up doing so after some more thinking. the way naomi klein blends the personal with the political makes the complex systems and concepts that klein covers throughout the book feels more accessible, and I see this as a good recommendation for someone who is interested in politics but not necessary steeped in it. the whole use of the word doppelganger to see different versions of ourselves we create in society (the self as perfected brand, the self as digital avatars, the self as data mine, the self as racist and anti-semetic projection, the child as mirror of the self, and the self as the eternal victim, to name a few) is definitely a way of seeing that I will take with, as with the concept of political diagonalism. also, this got me super tempted to read no logo, so don't be surprised if you see that here sometime soon.

so fucking good! i can't in good faith give it a five-star review because it is admittedly a huge mind fuck in certain sentences, with some confusing phrasing and wordplay which simultaneously makes my head hurt and makes me chuckle (see: "in an atmosphere atwittter with the cries that echo between those who merely watch and those who hunt such birds, what matter who killed cock robin? the logic of sinthomosexuality justifies that violent fate in advance by insisting that what such a cock had been robbing was always, in some sense, a cradle.")

alongside this, though, it also has some prose that is simply sublime, not only in its phrasing but in the fascinating ideas in which it is expressing. i say this about many of the books of this type i read, but it really fundamentally changed the way i view both my own queerness and the role of queerness (or, as edelman would say, the sinthomosexual) in broader society. and the concept and analysis of reproductive futurism alone makes this book worth the read. i will be thinking about this book for a long time to come, and i'm excited to read it again in the future when i am fully steeped in the field and can more fully understand all of the material.

i would put some favorite quotes here, but there are too many to choose from.
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update fall 2024: 

i never really agreed with the ideas lee edelman was expressing, but was moreso interested in how he articulated those ideas and the existence of those ideas themselves. after reading some really poignant critique of the hopelessness (and whiteness) of edelman's anti-futurity, i've realzied just how much i disagree with his ideas. at the same time, though, i retain a respect for his prose and don't beleive he is ill intentioned. i will continue to recommend this book, though with caution and with critique presented alongside it.