#the misogyny was bad in the beginning but some passages made me think okay....we're gonna eventually engage with this woman's situation in

[surpriserose]

there was a post going around a little while ago that had a link to like 100 classic books by authors of color and i picked out a few that were interesting to me to read so im doing that inbetween manga and hate reading coho so thumbs up emoji

the one i was able to get the easiest was kobo abe's the woman of the dunes and its about a dude who gets told to go into the sand pit with this lady against his will and tries to escape and well..... this is a 60s book which means yeah its good! its really thoughtful and the prose is really good (obviously translation isn't and shouldnt be one to one but it's still what abe wrote like janljkdnvd) but its also really misognyist! with the occasional gross racist or ableist comment too like christ......

like every time i was like okay im here with you im in the sand im feeling the sand im scared of the sand and im with you we're getting into philosophy im engaging with your metaphors theyre really good and complex loving the themes of stability and instability and work and purpose and then the main dude would sexually assault the titular woman and its like okay!!!!!!!! i get where we stand here buddy!!!!! oh now we're going off about sex and philosophy okay i can list 1000 other people i would rather listen to on this subject before you but i cant stop you!!!

#rape mention #like its a good book i really liked it when it wasnt misogynist!!! like youre adding nothing and youre actively weakening your themes and #shit like this woman is also trapped here!!!!! can we have a discussion about what it means for her to be trapped here with you!!!! #shes literally trapped in domesticity too!!!! and this dude is like oh well i mean ill send her a check for cooking for me and bathing me #on top of all the other work shes expected to do hauling sand WITH YOU can we talk about that that's way more interesting!!!! #of course she's more resigned then you she's literally acting like your fucking wifeeeee and you just keep drugging and raping her about it #the misogyny was bad in the beginning but some passages made me think okay....we're gonna eventually engage with this woman's situation in #an interesting way but uh no not really and it just ramped up towards the end which is why this sounds angrier then i thought it would