I’ve been doing a lot of painting at work the last two weeks which has given me the opportunity to listen to an audiobook recording of ‘Between Two Fires.’ It’s a grim dark fantasy that takes place in the 1300s during the plague and the apocalypse from the christian bible. The story follows an excommunicated knight, an alcoholic gay priest, and a little girl. It’s got its good parts, and I’ve enjoyed a good chunk of it, but I don’t think I can recommend this book, and I’ll explain why in the spoiler.
[CW for talk of SA] Critique of Between Two Fires
spoiler
The book opens up with an attempt of rape against a child and throughout the book the author repeatedly uses rape and pedophilia as a narrative tool to heighten the stakes of a given situation. I think that this is such a shitty trope to use in literature, and I know my opinion would be hand waved away by some reddit chuds who’d say something like, “the medieval times were brutal bro, the author is just being realistic.” But you know what, the author is the one writing the story and has complete control over the world and the narrative and gets to choose what happens. I think that the use of rape as a narrative tool, used to garner support from the reader for a character is lazy and at best is an example of writing that is tasteless and comes with the risk of alienating and traumatizing your audience for no reason. Also, something that was just disgusting is the author compares one of the main character’s attempt of pedophilic rape to the plucking of a divine fruit… just gross.
Another thing is that there’s not a single woman character that has any internality throughout the book. I haven’t finished yet, I’m around chapter 22 I think, and so far, the book is just about the thoughts and deeds of men. There are women in the book but they only exist as set dressing or sexual objects used by characters. The only possible exception is of the child, but her actions or thoughts are always to provide an example of a Catholic portrayal of innocence that’s also always a response to the actions of men.
The book is, “what if Christianity was real?” So of course, homophobia isn’t just portrayed as a thing of its time (homophobia was never okay) but instead being queer is treated as a universal morally reprehensible thing justified by literal angels and devils existing in the book’s universe. This critique also extends to racism against Arab and Turkish people and anti-religiousness against Muslims and Jewish people. I haven’t finished the book yet, maybe these things are touched on more but how the author has handled SA and writing women, I’m not going to hold my breath.
I’m sure there’s other things that I’ve missed.
The second book I’ve been reading is Theory related, Yay! It’s called, “Dialectics of Chinese Labor: Trade Unions Under Market Socialism” by Immanuel Ness.
The summary on the website is,
A Marxist sociology of state owned enterprises (SOEs), trade unions, and workers in China’s gig and platform economy — from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping. This book challenges the myth of the “passive worker” and argues that, against the grain, the labour movement is working.
It’s a book that rightfully criticizes western labor organizing and unions, but its main thesis is to challenge the western narratives made against the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. It talks about how Chinese workers have organized and adapted to reform and opening up, rural to urban migration, and the rise of the digital platform economy. It also discusses the relationship between the union and the CPC which is cool to hear explained as a transmission belt between the party and the workers.
The book is quite repetitive, but I fully recommend it. The PDF is free on the authors website, linked below.
https://labourdialectics.org/
I’ve been reading two books.
I’ve been doing a lot of painting at work the last two weeks which has given me the opportunity to listen to an audiobook recording of ‘Between Two Fires.’ It’s a grim dark fantasy that takes place in the 1300s during the plague and the apocalypse from the christian bible. The story follows an excommunicated knight, an alcoholic gay priest, and a little girl. It’s got its good parts, and I’ve enjoyed a good chunk of it, but I don’t think I can recommend this book, and I’ll explain why in the spoiler.
[CW for talk of SA] Critique of Between Two Fires
spoiler
The book opens up with an attempt of rape against a child and throughout the book the author repeatedly uses rape and pedophilia as a narrative tool to heighten the stakes of a given situation. I think that this is such a shitty trope to use in literature, and I know my opinion would be hand waved away by some reddit chuds who’d say something like, “the medieval times were brutal bro, the author is just being realistic.” But you know what, the author is the one writing the story and has complete control over the world and the narrative and gets to choose what happens. I think that the use of rape as a narrative tool, used to garner support from the reader for a character is lazy and at best is an example of writing that is tasteless and comes with the risk of alienating and traumatizing your audience for no reason. Also, something that was just disgusting is the author compares one of the main character’s attempt of pedophilic rape to the plucking of a divine fruit… just gross.
Another thing is that there’s not a single woman character that has any internality throughout the book. I haven’t finished yet, I’m around chapter 22 I think, and so far, the book is just about the thoughts and deeds of men. There are women in the book but they only exist as set dressing or sexual objects used by characters. The only possible exception is of the child, but her actions or thoughts are always to provide an example of a Catholic portrayal of innocence that’s also always a response to the actions of men.
The book is, “what if Christianity was real?” So of course, homophobia isn’t just portrayed as a thing of its time (homophobia was never okay) but instead being queer is treated as a universal morally reprehensible thing justified by literal angels and devils existing in the book’s universe. This critique also extends to racism against Arab and Turkish people and anti-religiousness against Muslims and Jewish people. I haven’t finished the book yet, maybe these things are touched on more but how the author has handled SA and writing women, I’m not going to hold my breath.
I’m sure there’s other things that I’ve missed.
The second book I’ve been reading is Theory related, Yay! It’s called, “Dialectics of Chinese Labor: Trade Unions Under Market Socialism” by Immanuel Ness.
The summary on the website is,
It’s a book that rightfully criticizes western labor organizing and unions, but its main thesis is to challenge the western narratives made against the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. It talks about how Chinese workers have organized and adapted to reform and opening up, rural to urban migration, and the rise of the digital platform economy. It also discusses the relationship between the union and the CPC which is cool to hear explained as a transmission belt between the party and the workers.
The book is quite repetitive, but I fully recommend it. The PDF is free on the authors website, linked below. https://labourdialectics.org/
Excellent recommendation comrade! I’ll add it to my tbr.