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Mercy
If Andrea Dworkin is the Malcolm X of feminism, then this novel is her version of his autobiography. . . . She is brilliant, her anger is a polished and dangerous instrument, and even some of the people she's marked as enemies can hope she finds her way. –– Madison Smartt Bell, Chicago Tribune
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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About the author
Andrea Dworkin
30 books1,473 followersAndrea Rita Dworkin was an American radical feminist and writer best known for her criticism of pornography, which she argued was linked to rape and other forms of violence against women.
An anti-war activist and anarchist in the late 1960s, Dworkin wrote 10 books on radical feminist theory and practice. During the late 1970s and the 1980s, she gained national fame as a spokeswoman for the feminist anti-pornography movement, and for her writing on pornography and sexuality, particularly in Pornography - Men Possessing Women (1981) and Intercourse (1987), which remain her two most widely known books.
An anti-war activist and anarchist in the late 1960s, Dworkin wrote 10 books on radical feminist theory and practice. During the late 1970s and the 1980s, she gained national fame as a spokeswoman for the feminist anti-pornography movement, and for her writing on pornography and sexuality, particularly in Pornography - Men Possessing Women (1981) and Intercourse (1987), which remain her two most widely known books.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
November 25, 2025
Listen, as a third-wave sexpositive feminist, I have a whole ton of issues with Dworkin's politics, but this excellently written book does a hell of a job describing what misogyny means when you're a woman: Rendered in an intense, vivid stream-of-consciousness, narrator "Andrea", the fictional alter ego of the author, survives experiences that are very close to the real life of Dworkin, and the prose forces readers to partake in the emotions that come with it. The novel takes us through numerous instances of mainly sexualized physical violence, and Dworkin manages to show how this is merely the ultimate effect of what we would today call "rape culture": Women are constantly confronted with societal expectations, deviation is punished, until women internalize the gaslighting, slut-shaming, victim-blaming etc. and, conveniently, start gaslighting themselves, until they lose trust in their ability to judge what happens to them or even become perpetrators in their own way. It's all around de-humanization (also for men, btw; check out Klaus Theweleit's work, it's worth it).
The novel impressively shows that much of Dworkin's theory is rooted in trauma; hell, the whole book illuminates the mental disintegration of the main character "Andrea", starting with a sexual assault in a cinema when she was nine. Older "Andrea" strives to live freely and partake in counterculture, only to learn that there is no place for her in the peace movement and the revolution, at least not as a revolutionary. The same goes for the art world. And this is where the schism between second- and third-wave feminism happens: The conclusions thinkers draw from systematic female exclusion and abuse. But "Mercy" has prompted me to ponder more deeply that a feminist like Dworkin, born in 1946, was confronted with a whole other societal climate, which does, IMHO, not render some of her attitudes more valid, but it is fair to consider the specific trauma they were probably influenced by.
There are some pieces of information and motifs that are repeated through out the text, and while they add to the structure, not all of them work. For instance, I have to say that as a German, I read all of these Holocaust comparisons and I find them tasteless and all-around wrong (yes, I'm aware that a) Dworkin was Jewish, and b) that this is also a cultural issue, and Dworkin was US-American, but this German Catholic thinks it's not okay, especially not for shock value). Also, just for the record, it's of course untrue that "Andrea" is exclusively a boys' name in Europe; in Germany, for instance, it's a very common name for women.
Overall, I have to admit that I was surprised by the amazing prose Dworkin produces, and she also gives us some hilarious passages about the great literary fuck boys, and what's not love about this (and I say that as a avid fan of the likes of Jack Kerouac). This is an intense, horrifying read with impressive literary quality, and a book that can be discussed in the context of feminist theory despite being a novel.
EDIT: Just found an interesting article about the new found relevance of Dworkin; spoiler alert: It's her rage we connect to in times like these: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/op...
The novel impressively shows that much of Dworkin's theory is rooted in trauma; hell, the whole book illuminates the mental disintegration of the main character "Andrea", starting with a sexual assault in a cinema when she was nine. Older "Andrea" strives to live freely and partake in counterculture, only to learn that there is no place for her in the peace movement and the revolution, at least not as a revolutionary. The same goes for the art world. And this is where the schism between second- and third-wave feminism happens: The conclusions thinkers draw from systematic female exclusion and abuse. But "Mercy" has prompted me to ponder more deeply that a feminist like Dworkin, born in 1946, was confronted with a whole other societal climate, which does, IMHO, not render some of her attitudes more valid, but it is fair to consider the specific trauma they were probably influenced by.
There are some pieces of information and motifs that are repeated through out the text, and while they add to the structure, not all of them work. For instance, I have to say that as a German, I read all of these Holocaust comparisons and I find them tasteless and all-around wrong (yes, I'm aware that a) Dworkin was Jewish, and b) that this is also a cultural issue, and Dworkin was US-American, but this German Catholic thinks it's not okay, especially not for shock value). Also, just for the record, it's of course untrue that "Andrea" is exclusively a boys' name in Europe; in Germany, for instance, it's a very common name for women.
Overall, I have to admit that I was surprised by the amazing prose Dworkin produces, and she also gives us some hilarious passages about the great literary fuck boys, and what's not love about this (and I say that as a avid fan of the likes of Jack Kerouac). This is an intense, horrifying read with impressive literary quality, and a book that can be discussed in the context of feminist theory despite being a novel.
EDIT: Just found an interesting article about the new found relevance of Dworkin; spoiler alert: It's her rage we connect to in times like these: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/op...
December 16, 2017
Bigger than Bernhard. I won't go into the politics. Some people have said the protagonist made a bunch of bad decisions. Isn't this a strange world we live in, where we're punished for the pain we're dealt and endure?
June 8, 2023
Reading this book is like having a dense brick slowly sinking into the softness of your brain. That is precisely how Andrea Dworkin figures pain and oppression have worked themselves into the entirety of her consciousness.
Dworkin was one of the purveyors of the transgressive who, to me, achieved pain through writing in a way none of her contemporaries did—by treating abuse not as a shocking spectacle, but as a settled, stagnant reality.
In Mercy, one of her fictional pieces, she holds on almost desperately to the notion that language is the gateway to the mind, and in splicing together her words in long, exhausting, downright debilitating stream-of-consciousness paragraphs, she forges with fiction the very real chains of bondage and oppression that have dug rusted trails through the tradition, structural thought, domestic relationships, and even the love that surrounds our main character—everything, the totality of her existence, always hypnotically comes back to being abused in bed by her lover every night. Dworkin eventually wonders if this abuse is actually what life is, and the rest of life just a dream that every day grows blurrier. See, in this book, the moments of pain are not even laid out on the page per se. Yet, It’s the WEIGHT of that pain that Dworkin never lets you forget, because of how tired she is of it being forgotten. Forgetting is mercy for those who have the privilege to do so, and despite the title, Dworkin has zero mercy for those who enter fictional violence anticipating a spectacle.
Laying her political schisms aside, Dworkin was one of the most honest (and therefore, loneliest) writers to have existed in the 20th century.
Dworkin was one of the purveyors of the transgressive who, to me, achieved pain through writing in a way none of her contemporaries did—by treating abuse not as a shocking spectacle, but as a settled, stagnant reality.
In Mercy, one of her fictional pieces, she holds on almost desperately to the notion that language is the gateway to the mind, and in splicing together her words in long, exhausting, downright debilitating stream-of-consciousness paragraphs, she forges with fiction the very real chains of bondage and oppression that have dug rusted trails through the tradition, structural thought, domestic relationships, and even the love that surrounds our main character—everything, the totality of her existence, always hypnotically comes back to being abused in bed by her lover every night. Dworkin eventually wonders if this abuse is actually what life is, and the rest of life just a dream that every day grows blurrier. See, in this book, the moments of pain are not even laid out on the page per se. Yet, It’s the WEIGHT of that pain that Dworkin never lets you forget, because of how tired she is of it being forgotten. Forgetting is mercy for those who have the privilege to do so, and despite the title, Dworkin has zero mercy for those who enter fictional violence anticipating a spectacle.
Laying her political schisms aside, Dworkin was one of the most honest (and therefore, loneliest) writers to have existed in the 20th century.
September 29, 2007
This book leaves me feeling like scorched female earth. I wish it weren't all true.
August 14, 2018
I cannot understand why this work is not a major part of the lexicon of “Important Literature”. Dworkin far outwrites the likes of Charles Bukowski, James Joyce, Phillip Roth, David Foster Wallace, Hunter S Thompson and on and on as Dick Lit seems to run. These men would blush at the outright audacity of Dworkin’s writing and subject matter. In your face, more epic poem than novel, Dworkin is a Master! Her writing streams along at a breakneck pace leaving the reader out of breath and exhausted by the end of one complete run-on sentence. Why have I never heard of this novel until now!?!? Perhaps the subject matter is just too much for most, but why is it that when a woman writes something like this it’s totally disregarded, buried and forgotten but let a man write a watered down version and that shit is going to be all over the New York Times! Instant star!! This book is a must read for every single man on this planet, but then again maybe not, they’d just copy her style and get published overnight! UGH!
August 27, 2015
I actually think Andrea Dworkin was one of the most badass persons in history. I often disagree with her & her opinions, but she was an excellent writer and had ovaries of steel. I mean, how in the world is this worse than Paradoxia: A Predator's Diary? In fact, it's better. But Lydia Lunch is a countercultural icon and Dworkin is boring and sanctimonious and FAT (the worst sin) and blah-blah-blah ask anyone. Well, like, shut up.
Oh, and the way she writes about sex would do honor to any of her "sex-positive" rivals.
Oh, and the way she writes about sex would do honor to any of her "sex-positive" rivals.
February 16, 2016
A hard book to read because of the heavy material and syntax. It's power comes from first person stream of consciousness narrative, long sentences, no paragraph breaks, and the buildup of repeated details. Suffocating. Downright poetic. One of the most brutal books I've ever read. I had to take breaks but I had to finish it as well. It's a critique of rape culture, masculinity, patriarchy, and everything.
December 22, 2008
It'll piss you off, it'll make you sick, but you need to read it.
A good male friend hipped me to Andrea Dworkin a long time ago, and I'm glad that he did. Mercy is an honest telling of the mental, physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual burdens, preconceptions, discriminations, and injustices that women have inherited from the beginning. Andrea Dworkin is a fearless, scathing, intelligent, and compelling writer. She seeks out the emotional core of an issue and doesn't back down. Her zeal, courage and presence is remarkable. Though this book might be difficult for some to digest - as the truth often is - it should be read by any woman or man who wants to understand the extremes of the female experience. It will invoke anger and awareness, and with hope, evolution. It's a disturbing ride, but at the end of it the reader is left with a feeling of being understood and defended, and an admiration for Andrea Dworkin's survival skills, strength, and brilliance.
A good male friend hipped me to Andrea Dworkin a long time ago, and I'm glad that he did. Mercy is an honest telling of the mental, physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual burdens, preconceptions, discriminations, and injustices that women have inherited from the beginning. Andrea Dworkin is a fearless, scathing, intelligent, and compelling writer. She seeks out the emotional core of an issue and doesn't back down. Her zeal, courage and presence is remarkable. Though this book might be difficult for some to digest - as the truth often is - it should be read by any woman or man who wants to understand the extremes of the female experience. It will invoke anger and awareness, and with hope, evolution. It's a disturbing ride, but at the end of it the reader is left with a feeling of being understood and defended, and an admiration for Andrea Dworkin's survival skills, strength, and brilliance.
August 14, 2016
andrea had the right idea in the last chapter. i wish she was still alive and that her life hadn't been a never ending struggle pockmarked with brutality. i wish this book made men care.
March 16, 2013
This is brilliant stuff. One of the most painful books I've read in a very long time; & never before have I empathized more with a character. And yet,the brilliance of Andrea-the-author lies in the fact that after having you more or less totally convinced that a reductionist feminist like Andrea-the-character is perfectly justified in feeling the way she does, the Epilogue offers the distanced-intellectual stance, which seems to you equally reductionist.
Oh and it's poetic too, despite the non-stop barrage of rape scenes. Sample these:
"..I got muscles packed with memory; hard,thick,solid,from the positions reenacted, down on my knees, down on my back; I got memories packed in my bones, because my brain don't make distinctions no more; can't tell him from him from him; I have an intuitive dread, of him and him and him; there's a heightened anxiety.."
"I'm taking her place, whoever she was, they don't know us apart, cunt is cunt is cunt, I'm taking her place now..."
"I'm on this earth to see now that he has a problem"
"I'm Andrea, which means manhood, but I do not rape; it is possible to be manly in your heart and not rape."
"I had an abhorrence for killing, but it was raped from me, raped from my brain; obliterated, like freedom"
Oh and it's poetic too, despite the non-stop barrage of rape scenes. Sample these:
"..I got muscles packed with memory; hard,thick,solid,from the positions reenacted, down on my knees, down on my back; I got memories packed in my bones, because my brain don't make distinctions no more; can't tell him from him from him; I have an intuitive dread, of him and him and him; there's a heightened anxiety.."
"I'm taking her place, whoever she was, they don't know us apart, cunt is cunt is cunt, I'm taking her place now..."
"I'm on this earth to see now that he has a problem"
"I'm Andrea, which means manhood, but I do not rape; it is possible to be manly in your heart and not rape."
"I had an abhorrence for killing, but it was raped from me, raped from my brain; obliterated, like freedom"
January 17, 2019
I describe reading a great book as running downhill, but this was more like being pushed and rolled. I have so much regard for Andrea Dworkin, but I'm glad she didn't sully her reputation with a second fictional novel.
This was pretty terrible because of the way it was written...although if I put my English Literature student hat on, I can see that the stream of consciousness and repetitiveness is a device used to express both the rage and numbness that comes from a lifetime of struggling uphill against the patriarchal machine. The novel is shattering, because it's her actual life published as a novel. I can't separate her life from her fiction, because her fiction is her life. I just HATE stream of consciousness and always have. And always will. I love sentence fragments, though. :)
I'm glad I read Mercy, however. Now I can get back to close-reading her non-fiction again.
This was pretty terrible because of the way it was written...although if I put my English Literature student hat on, I can see that the stream of consciousness and repetitiveness is a device used to express both the rage and numbness that comes from a lifetime of struggling uphill against the patriarchal machine. The novel is shattering, because it's her actual life published as a novel. I can't separate her life from her fiction, because her fiction is her life. I just HATE stream of consciousness and always have. And always will. I love sentence fragments, though. :)
I'm glad I read Mercy, however. Now I can get back to close-reading her non-fiction again.
August 31, 2018
I can imagine someone contemporaneously who was familiar with Dworkin's non-fiction buying this and being confused, as I was myself reading the "prologue." This is essentially experimental fiction which self-consciously wields the tools of modernist male literature, as well as, one could argue, an attempt [perhaps unsuccessful] to redeem an emancipatory ethic putatively at the core of Ginsberg's poetry [famously a longtime hero and occasional friend to Dworkin until she very courageously excoriated and exposed him for reasons she describes in this recording-- basically he was a pro-NAMBLA pedophile and a predator].
The intertextual narrative antagonisms are not merely contrasting views or representative of discrete stages of an individual intellectual development, but moments of a dialectic phenomenology.
Contains the usual Dworkin obsessions and subjects-- including male terrorism and male supremacy with all its institutions, as well as provocative passages on Judaism and Jewish history, and a frustration and preoccupation with language. Among the strongest sections is the final chapter-- somewhat akin to Solanas, with some lines that could even be called Burroughs-esque.
Obviously this is not enjoyable and is extremely unpleasant.
Anything I can say isn’t the worst; I don’t remember the worst. It’s the only thing God did right in everything I seen on earth: made the mind like scorched earth. The mind shows you mercy.
[3.5/5.0 stars].
p.s. Unfortunately this does have a blurb on the front from infiltrator and CIA snitch Gloria Steinem... will probably throw the dust jacket away for that reason...
The intertextual narrative antagonisms are not merely contrasting views or representative of discrete stages of an individual intellectual development, but moments of a dialectic phenomenology.
Contains the usual Dworkin obsessions and subjects-- including male terrorism and male supremacy with all its institutions, as well as provocative passages on Judaism and Jewish history, and a frustration and preoccupation with language. Among the strongest sections is the final chapter-- somewhat akin to Solanas, with some lines that could even be called Burroughs-esque.
Obviously this is not enjoyable and is extremely unpleasant.
Anything I can say isn’t the worst; I don’t remember the worst. It’s the only thing God did right in everything I seen on earth: made the mind like scorched earth. The mind shows you mercy.
[3.5/5.0 stars].
p.s. Unfortunately this does have a blurb on the front from infiltrator and CIA snitch Gloria Steinem... will probably throw the dust jacket away for that reason...
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May 30, 2011I did not enjoy reading this book, to be honest. However I am thankful that I read it. It definitely “expanded my horizons” and not in a clichéd way. The style is unlike most novels I’ve read and it was tiring for its format not just its content. I almost gave up on this book several times because it was so disturbingly graphic and overall a real downer (I felt physically ill at several points in this book), but in the end I completely believe it was worthwhile to read. I am not a victim of sexual violence but it seems like survivors may have a hard time with some of the triggers in this book. I think it is a fascinating example of one radical feminist’s writing and I appreciated it as both a historic document of sorts and as a well-written novel in its own right. Andrea Dworkin was (and continues to be after her death) an important and controversial figure in radical feminism. I am very intrigued with her opinions on pornography and women (as a feminist issue, I see valid points on both sides of the porn argument and am rather undecided about where I stand). Perhaps someday I will feel up to delving into Pornography: Men Possessing Women but it will probably be at some point in the future when I’m craving a good mental workout.
December 8, 2017
im not sure if there's ever a good time to read this book, but i can say with a lot of certainty that it felt especially wrong during the holidays. intensely violent, this book is essentially one extended rape scene. a manifesto of the broken. i still haven't really determined how i feel about this book, but its worth noting that a month later, this book is still on my mind. 300 pages of relentless articulation of pain is not easy to forget; this book will haunt you forever.
December 9, 2017
Mir geht es sehr ähnlich wie anderen RezensentInnen: Dieses Buch war (vor allem zum Ende hin) sehr sehr schwer zu lesen, und als jemand, die kein Fan von Triggerwarnungen ist: Hier wären sie angebracht. Dennoch: Sie beschreibt das wahre Leben, und deshalb ist es angemessen sie auch so drastisch zu benennen. Es gelingt Andrea Dworkin, in einer unfassbar nahe gehenden Sprache, die Realität für Frauen in unseren Gesellschaften in Worte zu fassen. Eine der größten Autorinnen überhaupt, egal ob Sachbuch oder Prosa.
August 4, 2017
Beautiful writing but a very difficult read. I spread this out a bit because it is an awful lot to digest at once and can leave the reader exhausted and horrified but grateful to Dworkin for putting it into words at the same time.
September 8, 2020
reading this book is like drowning in every silenced woman's fury, over and over for eternity.
May 14, 2008
Wow. This book is 344 pages of sheer pain and rage. I can't say that I enjoyed it, but I am glad I read it. It made me think about a lot of things that I would rather not, but that I needed to.
I have a problem with porn in general because I think it objectifies women and gives men an unrealistic idea of what women should look like and act like. I think women participate in it not because they like sex or think it's fun or whatever, but because they need the approving male gaze to believe that they are attractive or worth something, or worse. However, even I can see that there is a big difference between cheeseball crap like Playboy and the hardcore S&M porn that Andrea, the narrator, rails against. It's not ALL like that: women being hung, whipped, etc. And obviously that kind is worse. And there is obviously a difference between women who choose to take part in it (for bad reasons, but still they do choose) and women who are forced. You have to make a distinction somewhere if you're going to be reasonable.
Here is a sample passage: "I have two questions all the time, why she ain't dead is one and why would anyone, even a man, think it's true--her all strung out, all painted, all glossy, proclaiming being peed on is what she wants; I do not get how the lie flies; or ain't they ever made love, or ever seen no one real; and maybe she's dead by now; they must think it's like you are born a porn thing; in the hospital they take the baby and they say take it to the warehouse, it's a porn thing. They must think it's a special species..or they think every girl is one, underneath... And they get hard from it, the porn thing, flat and glossy, dead and slick, and after they find something resembling the specimen from under the glass and they stick it in."
One thing that bothered me throughout the book was that Andrea continually allows herself to be in situations where she is likely to be victimized, then behaves as if it came out of the blue. OBVIOUSLY it is never the victim's fault, but as an adult you can make choices that will decrease the likelihood of abuse.
I would not recommend this book to any woman who is already on the border of hysterical hatred of porn or men. It will upset you too much. Anyone and everyone else would benefit from reading it.
I have a problem with porn in general because I think it objectifies women and gives men an unrealistic idea of what women should look like and act like. I think women participate in it not because they like sex or think it's fun or whatever, but because they need the approving male gaze to believe that they are attractive or worth something, or worse. However, even I can see that there is a big difference between cheeseball crap like Playboy and the hardcore S&M porn that Andrea, the narrator, rails against. It's not ALL like that: women being hung, whipped, etc. And obviously that kind is worse. And there is obviously a difference between women who choose to take part in it (for bad reasons, but still they do choose) and women who are forced. You have to make a distinction somewhere if you're going to be reasonable.
Here is a sample passage: "I have two questions all the time, why she ain't dead is one and why would anyone, even a man, think it's true--her all strung out, all painted, all glossy, proclaiming being peed on is what she wants; I do not get how the lie flies; or ain't they ever made love, or ever seen no one real; and maybe she's dead by now; they must think it's like you are born a porn thing; in the hospital they take the baby and they say take it to the warehouse, it's a porn thing. They must think it's a special species..or they think every girl is one, underneath... And they get hard from it, the porn thing, flat and glossy, dead and slick, and after they find something resembling the specimen from under the glass and they stick it in."
One thing that bothered me throughout the book was that Andrea continually allows herself to be in situations where she is likely to be victimized, then behaves as if it came out of the blue. OBVIOUSLY it is never the victim's fault, but as an adult you can make choices that will decrease the likelihood of abuse.
I would not recommend this book to any woman who is already on the border of hysterical hatred of porn or men. It will upset you too much. Anyone and everyone else would benefit from reading it.
October 21, 2019
I first wanted to rate it as three stars but now I know why. The book makes you reflect on all the experiences you had and thought they are normal. They are so uncomfortable and shameful because these things are taught to you being normal when it fact they are NOT. Reading this book feels like an assault because it asks something of the reader: honest and brutal reflection. That’s where Dworkin starts in her book: her parents after a sexual assault in a movie theatre when she is nine only consider it as rape when it’s penetration (they say thank god, nothing happened), which makes the reader literally want to scream out NO in anger.
Later in the book all the stuff that happens to the narrator are not all rape in the „classical" sense and yet they still feel a hell lot like rape. I think that‘s what she is trying to tell the reader, to not think this is normal or „nothing happened and everything is ok." Yes, it is important to differentiate cases legally but think about what it does socially/culturally? A dichotomy between rape and not rape is created and everything that is not rape is considered "thank god, nothing happened." Also, every person who is inclined to say Dworkin made the wrong choices does not understand our fucked up patriarchal system. Can we stop blaming the victim and finally demand men to stop being violent? Let's focus on the important stuff and let's not get distracted. I have hope. As Dworkin says: "I am reliably told there are many more; girls named courage who are ready to kill" (333). I am ready to kill. Are you?
Later in the book all the stuff that happens to the narrator are not all rape in the „classical" sense and yet they still feel a hell lot like rape. I think that‘s what she is trying to tell the reader, to not think this is normal or „nothing happened and everything is ok." Yes, it is important to differentiate cases legally but think about what it does socially/culturally? A dichotomy between rape and not rape is created and everything that is not rape is considered "thank god, nothing happened." Also, every person who is inclined to say Dworkin made the wrong choices does not understand our fucked up patriarchal system. Can we stop blaming the victim and finally demand men to stop being violent? Let's focus on the important stuff and let's not get distracted. I have hope. As Dworkin says: "I am reliably told there are many more; girls named courage who are ready to kill" (333). I am ready to kill. Are you?
September 5, 2016
This is one of those books with which I've developed a love/hate relationship. So strident is Dworkin's indignation with the patriarchy's dismissive treatment of women that it propels her over the top (way over!) often enough to relegate her story to caricature. I mean, there isn't a male in these pages who isn't a lout or a sadist. Talk about one-dimensional! Which is hardly the way to approach a polemic.
On the other hand, I'm not only in awe of her style and its majestic, searing prose but the depth and power of the emotion she can coax from a keyboard. One may not agree with her politics, but it's impossible when she's at her best not to fall under her spell. With Dworkin one doesn't merely sympathize with her female characters, one becomes them-- feels their pain, their shame, their isolation, and anger as if they were one's own.
I suggest you read Mercy with a selective eye-- but do read it! Here be a WRITER.
On the other hand, I'm not only in awe of her style and its majestic, searing prose but the depth and power of the emotion she can coax from a keyboard. One may not agree with her politics, but it's impossible when she's at her best not to fall under her spell. With Dworkin one doesn't merely sympathize with her female characters, one becomes them-- feels their pain, their shame, their isolation, and anger as if they were one's own.
I suggest you read Mercy with a selective eye-- but do read it! Here be a WRITER.
January 23, 2016
This is a hard book to read. Dworkin admits that its a difficult thing to write as well at the end, because of the brutal repetition. Like many 'experimental' works, it's hard to describe because there's no frame to compare it to. Still, this work leaves you with a definite impression. By the end you are left exhausted which is the title. The novel takes you to a place, merely because of the position you are left in the beginning with; this the rage that spawned feminism, outlining the need for radical change, where we live with half the population who are deemed second class people, left to be exploited for access to their bodies.
September 1, 2019
Dworkin is often caricatured as a ‘bad feminist' who 'hates men'. From what I can see in this book, she hates what men did to her, and she wants justice. The MeToo movement is a direct descendant of her work, although she has been pushed into obscurity. This is worth a read for sure, to see her points made up close and personal. There are valuable insights here for feminists today. As another reviewer says, I wish this book made men care.
Furthermore, from a literary perspective this book is very good, and deserves to be read on it's literary merit alone, but I suspect the subject matter and the author hold many people back.
Furthermore, from a literary perspective this book is very good, and deserves to be read on it's literary merit alone, but I suspect the subject matter and the author hold many people back.
May 23, 2012
Anti-porn movement is often described as a group of fat old women who are anti-porn and anti-male because they think filth flying and out of different orifices is disgusting instead of arousing. Andrea Dworkin, radical feminist and anti-pornographer, fits to this streotype. Her novel Mercy is a victim´s purifying act against misogynist filth, Tarantino trash from artsy perspective. It is not good book, it is not enjoyable book, but it is full of victim´s rage against perpetrators of violence.
July 15, 2012
Dworkin at her best
February 19, 2025
The first chapters filled me with such sickness and dread that I wondered why I would read it. Why I would subject myself to these truths of womanhood I have, through no credit of my own, been spared, all written so hauntingly. That feeling did not abate the entire novel.
Each chapter of this book is it’s own poem, harrowing, beautiful and poignant. The run on sentences, pages or more, bring you into Andrea’s stream of consciousness, and places you into her experiences with minimal punctuation - there is no escape. A rhythmic and lyrical experience I often found myself reading aloud so I could best understand her meaning and feeling.
The rage Dworkin writes with, the pure rage, makes me feel so seen. Dan asked me why I align with her feminism so particularly and this book answered it - no other stream is angry enough about what has been and is and will be done to women. Andrea Dworkin is furious. She is also - unfathomably - hopeful.
Each chapter of this book is it’s own poem, harrowing, beautiful and poignant. The run on sentences, pages or more, bring you into Andrea’s stream of consciousness, and places you into her experiences with minimal punctuation - there is no escape. A rhythmic and lyrical experience I often found myself reading aloud so I could best understand her meaning and feeling.
The rage Dworkin writes with, the pure rage, makes me feel so seen. Dan asked me why I align with her feminism so particularly and this book answered it - no other stream is angry enough about what has been and is and will be done to women. Andrea Dworkin is furious. She is also - unfathomably - hopeful.
November 16, 2025
Mercy by Andrea Dworkin is harrowing. Devastatingly brilliant. The 'Not Andrea: Epilogue' is like a punch in the stomach but does indeed eloquently mimic those who believe rape only exists because it is thought to, thought to be bad, thought to be harm. "Rape is a momentary abrogation of choice. At its worst, it is like being hit by a car. The politicizing of it creates a false consciousness, one of victimization, and a false complaint, as if rape is a socially sanctioned male behaviour on a continuum of socially expressed masculinity." [page 340] As I said, devastatingly brilliant.
October 9, 2023
"... a dry fuck with a dry heart is being a man; a dry, heartless fuck with a dry, heartless heart..."
"In a culture which still believes that rape is every woman's fantasy, how is it possible to tell our story? How do we make ourselves heard? How are we to be believed? And finally, when woman. and children are being raped, tortured and abused every minute of every day, where is God? Are we His pornography?"
This is a brutal book; brutal to read and very triggering.
In the protagonist"s childhood, she had one teacher who was very strange:
".. one teacher in regular school made her pets stand behind her when she was sitting at her desk in the front of the room and you had to brush off her collar, just stand there behind her for 15 minutes or a half hour or longer and keep brushing her collar on her shoulders with your open hands, Palms down, stroking all the way whole way from her neck to her arms. She sat at her desk and we would be taking a test or writing something or answering her questions and she would say someone had to come up and stand behind her and she wore one of those fuzzy collars you put on top of sweaters and someone had to stand behind her chair facing the class and with their hands keep brushing the fuzzy collar down, smoothing it down, with one stroke from her neck to her shoulder, the left hand had to stroke the left side of her collar and the right hand had to stroke the right side of her collar, and it had to be smooth and in Rhythm and feel good to her or she would get mean and say sarcastic things about you to the class."
Yes, this is how Andrea Dworkin writes: she has no paragraph breaks and she has long, long, run-on sentences. It's kind of intense, and hard to read. But I kept at it.
The protagonist helped to protest the Vietnam War. But as usual, women are not treated equal to men, even when they're doing their time in jail for protesting.
".. they let me get arrested because it was numbers for the Press; but once we were arrested the women disappeared inside the prison, we were swallowed up in it, it wasn't as if anyone was missing to them. They were all over the men, to get them out, to keep track of them, to make sure they were okay, the heroes of the Revolution incarnate had to be taken care of. The real men were going to real jail in a real historical struggle; it was real revolution. The nothing ones walked off a cliff and melted Into Thin air. I didn't mind being used but I didn't expect to disappear into a Darkness resembling Hell by any measure; left there to rot by my brothers; the heroes of the revolution. They got the men out; they left us in. Rape, they said. We had to get them out as a priority; rape, they said. In jail men get raped, they said. No jokes, no laughs, no Nazis; rape; we can't have the heroes of the Revolution raped. And them that's raped ain't Heroes of the revolution; but there were no words for that. The women had honor. We stood up to the police. We didn't post bail. We went on a hunger strike. We didn't cooperate on any level, at any time. The pacifists just cut us loose so we could go under, no air from the surface, no lawyers, no word, no solace, no counsel, no help; but we didn't give in...."
For a time, the protagonist went to Greece and stayed on the island of Crete:
".. there are lots of Amerikans on Crete, military bases filled with soldiers, the permanent ones for the bases and then the ones sent here from Vietnam to rest and then sent back to Vietnam. Sometimes they come to the cafes in the afternoon to drink. I Don't Go Near them except to tell them not to go to Vietnam. I say it quietly to tables full of them in the blazing sun that keeps them always a little blind so they hesitate and I leave fast. The Cretans hate Amerikans; I guess most Greeks do because the Amerikan government keeps interfering so there won't be a left-wing government. The C. I. A. Is a strong and widely known presence. on Crete there are Air Force bases and the Amerikans treat the Cretans bad. The Cretans know the arrogance of occupying armies, the billious arrogance. They recognize the condescension without speaking the literal language of the occupiers. Most of the Amerikans are from the Deep South, White boys, and they call the Cretans niggers. They laugh at them and Shout at them and call them cunts, treat them like dirt, even the old mountain men whose faces surely would terrify anyone not a fool, the ones the Nazis didn't kill not because they were collaborators but because they were resistors. The Amerikans are young, 18, 19, 20, and they have the arrogance of Napoleon, each and every one of them; they are the kings of the world all flatulent with white wealth and the darkies are meant to serve them. They make me ashamed...."
Me too.
The title of the book comes from a part where the protagonist is talking about how the mind never remembers the worst--it just blanks out. For example, she bailed a boy, a fellow protestor in Amsterdam who was sent to jail. They layer married, and he began to beat her. or another example, books about the Holocaust, they are written so calmly, the author speaking so calmly, that the violence, the horror, doesn't come through the way it happened at the time.
"... it's the only thing God did right in everything I seen on earth: made the mind like scorched earth. The Mind shows you mercy. Freud didn't understand mercy. The mind gets blank and bare. There's nothing there. You got what you remember and what you don't and the very great thing is that you can't remember almost anything compared to what happened day in and day out. You can count how many days there were but it is a long stretch of Nothing in Your mind; there is nothing; there are blazing episodes of horror in a great stretch of nothing. You thank God for the nothing. You get on your fucking knees. We are doing some construction in our apartment and we had a pile of wood beams piled up and he got so mad at me - for what? - something about a locked door; I didn't lock the door or he didn't lock the door and I asked him why not - and he picked up one of the wood beams and he beat me with it across my legs like he was a trained torturer and knew how to do it, between the knees and the ankle, not busting the knees, not smashing the ankles, he just hammered it down on my legs, and I don't remember anything before or after,..."
The most awful part of this book is a part where the protagonist has this beautiful dog that lives with her. But one night she wants to go out and drink: I don't know why she can't drink at home, that's what I do. But she went to a bar and she had vodka drinks, one after another, until she got so shit-faced that she could barely stand up and find her way to the door. She had $2 left on the counter in front of her, and the bartender told her to take a cab, instead of leaving it for a tip for him. So she went outside and it's pouring down rain and this cab pulls up alongside of her and she asks him if she can get home on that $2, and he says yes. So he takes her to her address, and then he asks her can he come inside. She should never have done that! It was the total most horrible thing. He stuck it his big nasty dick in her throat. And tore the muscles in her throat, and then stole her dog.
".. and then I fall back into the deep Blackness and when I wake up I look for her, I wait for her; I'm waiting for her now. My throat's like some small animal nearly killed, maimed for religious slaughter, a small, nearly killed beast, a poor warm-blooded thing hurt by some ritual but I never heard of the religion, there's deep sacrifice, deep pain. I can't move because the poor thing'd shake near to torture; it's got to stay still, the maimed thing. I couldn't shout and I couldn't cry and I couldn't whisper or moan or call her name, in sighs, I couldn't whisper to myself in sighs. I couldn't swallow or breathe. I sat still in my own shit for some long time, many, many days, some months of days, and I rocked, I rocked back and forth on my heels, I rocked and I held myself in my arms, I didn't move more than to rock and I didn't wash and I didn't say nothing. I swallowed down some water as I could stand it, I breathed when I could, not too much, not too soon, not too hard. If he put semen on me it's still there, I wear it, whatever he did, if he did it I carry it whatever it is I don't know, I won't ever know, whatever he did stays done, anything he tore stays torn, anything he took stays gone. I look for her; I scan the wall; I stare; I see; I know; I will make myself into a weapon; I will turn myself into a new kind of death, for them; I got a new revolutionary love filling my heart; the real passion; the real thing. .."
So she lost her beautiful dog, all because she wanted to go out drinking. 😥
This book is a very different kind of book, and it's not very well understood. I gave it four stars because I think it's very important for the truth that it points out: how women are treated so horribly by Men, by the system that's in place, by the patriarchy. That truth needs to be shouted from the fucking rooftops.
"In a culture which still believes that rape is every woman's fantasy, how is it possible to tell our story? How do we make ourselves heard? How are we to be believed? And finally, when woman. and children are being raped, tortured and abused every minute of every day, where is God? Are we His pornography?"
This is a brutal book; brutal to read and very triggering.
In the protagonist"s childhood, she had one teacher who was very strange:
".. one teacher in regular school made her pets stand behind her when she was sitting at her desk in the front of the room and you had to brush off her collar, just stand there behind her for 15 minutes or a half hour or longer and keep brushing her collar on her shoulders with your open hands, Palms down, stroking all the way whole way from her neck to her arms. She sat at her desk and we would be taking a test or writing something or answering her questions and she would say someone had to come up and stand behind her and she wore one of those fuzzy collars you put on top of sweaters and someone had to stand behind her chair facing the class and with their hands keep brushing the fuzzy collar down, smoothing it down, with one stroke from her neck to her shoulder, the left hand had to stroke the left side of her collar and the right hand had to stroke the right side of her collar, and it had to be smooth and in Rhythm and feel good to her or she would get mean and say sarcastic things about you to the class."
Yes, this is how Andrea Dworkin writes: she has no paragraph breaks and she has long, long, run-on sentences. It's kind of intense, and hard to read. But I kept at it.
The protagonist helped to protest the Vietnam War. But as usual, women are not treated equal to men, even when they're doing their time in jail for protesting.
".. they let me get arrested because it was numbers for the Press; but once we were arrested the women disappeared inside the prison, we were swallowed up in it, it wasn't as if anyone was missing to them. They were all over the men, to get them out, to keep track of them, to make sure they were okay, the heroes of the Revolution incarnate had to be taken care of. The real men were going to real jail in a real historical struggle; it was real revolution. The nothing ones walked off a cliff and melted Into Thin air. I didn't mind being used but I didn't expect to disappear into a Darkness resembling Hell by any measure; left there to rot by my brothers; the heroes of the revolution. They got the men out; they left us in. Rape, they said. We had to get them out as a priority; rape, they said. In jail men get raped, they said. No jokes, no laughs, no Nazis; rape; we can't have the heroes of the Revolution raped. And them that's raped ain't Heroes of the revolution; but there were no words for that. The women had honor. We stood up to the police. We didn't post bail. We went on a hunger strike. We didn't cooperate on any level, at any time. The pacifists just cut us loose so we could go under, no air from the surface, no lawyers, no word, no solace, no counsel, no help; but we didn't give in...."
For a time, the protagonist went to Greece and stayed on the island of Crete:
".. there are lots of Amerikans on Crete, military bases filled with soldiers, the permanent ones for the bases and then the ones sent here from Vietnam to rest and then sent back to Vietnam. Sometimes they come to the cafes in the afternoon to drink. I Don't Go Near them except to tell them not to go to Vietnam. I say it quietly to tables full of them in the blazing sun that keeps them always a little blind so they hesitate and I leave fast. The Cretans hate Amerikans; I guess most Greeks do because the Amerikan government keeps interfering so there won't be a left-wing government. The C. I. A. Is a strong and widely known presence. on Crete there are Air Force bases and the Amerikans treat the Cretans bad. The Cretans know the arrogance of occupying armies, the billious arrogance. They recognize the condescension without speaking the literal language of the occupiers. Most of the Amerikans are from the Deep South, White boys, and they call the Cretans niggers. They laugh at them and Shout at them and call them cunts, treat them like dirt, even the old mountain men whose faces surely would terrify anyone not a fool, the ones the Nazis didn't kill not because they were collaborators but because they were resistors. The Amerikans are young, 18, 19, 20, and they have the arrogance of Napoleon, each and every one of them; they are the kings of the world all flatulent with white wealth and the darkies are meant to serve them. They make me ashamed...."
Me too.
The title of the book comes from a part where the protagonist is talking about how the mind never remembers the worst--it just blanks out. For example, she bailed a boy, a fellow protestor in Amsterdam who was sent to jail. They layer married, and he began to beat her. or another example, books about the Holocaust, they are written so calmly, the author speaking so calmly, that the violence, the horror, doesn't come through the way it happened at the time.
"... it's the only thing God did right in everything I seen on earth: made the mind like scorched earth. The Mind shows you mercy. Freud didn't understand mercy. The mind gets blank and bare. There's nothing there. You got what you remember and what you don't and the very great thing is that you can't remember almost anything compared to what happened day in and day out. You can count how many days there were but it is a long stretch of Nothing in Your mind; there is nothing; there are blazing episodes of horror in a great stretch of nothing. You thank God for the nothing. You get on your fucking knees. We are doing some construction in our apartment and we had a pile of wood beams piled up and he got so mad at me - for what? - something about a locked door; I didn't lock the door or he didn't lock the door and I asked him why not - and he picked up one of the wood beams and he beat me with it across my legs like he was a trained torturer and knew how to do it, between the knees and the ankle, not busting the knees, not smashing the ankles, he just hammered it down on my legs, and I don't remember anything before or after,..."
The most awful part of this book is a part where the protagonist has this beautiful dog that lives with her. But one night she wants to go out and drink: I don't know why she can't drink at home, that's what I do. But she went to a bar and she had vodka drinks, one after another, until she got so shit-faced that she could barely stand up and find her way to the door. She had $2 left on the counter in front of her, and the bartender told her to take a cab, instead of leaving it for a tip for him. So she went outside and it's pouring down rain and this cab pulls up alongside of her and she asks him if she can get home on that $2, and he says yes. So he takes her to her address, and then he asks her can he come inside. She should never have done that! It was the total most horrible thing. He stuck it his big nasty dick in her throat. And tore the muscles in her throat, and then stole her dog.
".. and then I fall back into the deep Blackness and when I wake up I look for her, I wait for her; I'm waiting for her now. My throat's like some small animal nearly killed, maimed for religious slaughter, a small, nearly killed beast, a poor warm-blooded thing hurt by some ritual but I never heard of the religion, there's deep sacrifice, deep pain. I can't move because the poor thing'd shake near to torture; it's got to stay still, the maimed thing. I couldn't shout and I couldn't cry and I couldn't whisper or moan or call her name, in sighs, I couldn't whisper to myself in sighs. I couldn't swallow or breathe. I sat still in my own shit for some long time, many, many days, some months of days, and I rocked, I rocked back and forth on my heels, I rocked and I held myself in my arms, I didn't move more than to rock and I didn't wash and I didn't say nothing. I swallowed down some water as I could stand it, I breathed when I could, not too much, not too soon, not too hard. If he put semen on me it's still there, I wear it, whatever he did, if he did it I carry it whatever it is I don't know, I won't ever know, whatever he did stays done, anything he tore stays torn, anything he took stays gone. I look for her; I scan the wall; I stare; I see; I know; I will make myself into a weapon; I will turn myself into a new kind of death, for them; I got a new revolutionary love filling my heart; the real passion; the real thing. .."
So she lost her beautiful dog, all because she wanted to go out drinking. 😥
This book is a very different kind of book, and it's not very well understood. I gave it four stars because I think it's very important for the truth that it points out: how women are treated so horribly by Men, by the system that's in place, by the patriarchy. That truth needs to be shouted from the fucking rooftops.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 16, 2025
such harrowing and horrific and essential themes written so so beautifully. i am so lucky to have been spared from the experiences andrea suffered yet i still feel so understood by her writing and in turn i am so grateful to get such vivid insight into the reality so many people endure. such rich and deep and gorgeous discussions of so many aspects of life. have never written down so many quotes before, here are the best:
‘it’s the cross for ladies, a bed, and you don’t get to die; the lucky boy, the favourite child, gets to die’ ‘you’re not god’s son you’re his daughter, and he leaves you there nailed’
‘god loves you with pain, by inflicting it in you, a slow, ardent lover, and you love back with suffering because you are helpless and human, an imprisoned child of him caged in the world of his making’
‘i am grateful for every minute i cannot remember’ , ‘i am grateful for an amnesia so deep it resembles peace’
‘i had thought fucking for money was stealing from the strong but it only robbed me, although i can’t say of what, because there’s more wordlessness there, more what’s never been said; i’m not formulated enough to get at it’
‘even if there’s laws, by the time they have hurt you you are too dirty for the law; the law needs clean ones but they dirty you up so the law won’t take you’
‘many a man’s died his little death there and i made the mistake of not burying him when he was exactly ripe for it’
‘it’s the cross for ladies, a bed, and you don’t get to die; the lucky boy, the favourite child, gets to die’ ‘you’re not god’s son you’re his daughter, and he leaves you there nailed’
‘god loves you with pain, by inflicting it in you, a slow, ardent lover, and you love back with suffering because you are helpless and human, an imprisoned child of him caged in the world of his making’
‘i am grateful for every minute i cannot remember’ , ‘i am grateful for an amnesia so deep it resembles peace’
‘i had thought fucking for money was stealing from the strong but it only robbed me, although i can’t say of what, because there’s more wordlessness there, more what’s never been said; i’m not formulated enough to get at it’
‘even if there’s laws, by the time they have hurt you you are too dirty for the law; the law needs clean ones but they dirty you up so the law won’t take you’
‘many a man’s died his little death there and i made the mistake of not burying him when he was exactly ripe for it’
December 9, 2024
the penultimate chapter was the best of the book, the whole book was like seeing a woman slowly unravel because of constant subjection and abuse from males. took me so long to get through because it was so brutal and true to life as a woman. i am still thinking about it a week on and listening to her talk about this book dworkin is an especially genius fiction writer.
“It’s very important for women to kill men. His death, of course, is unbearable. His death is intolerable, unspeakable, unfair, insufferable; I agree; I learned it since the day I was born; terrible; his death is terrible; are you crazy; are you stupid; are you cruel? He can't be killed; for what he did to you?”
“It’s very important for women to kill men. His death, of course, is unbearable. His death is intolerable, unspeakable, unfair, insufferable; I agree; I learned it since the day I was born; terrible; his death is terrible; are you crazy; are you stupid; are you cruel? He can't be killed; for what he did to you?”
December 10, 2022
4,5.
"There's no purity on this earth from ego or greed and i never set out to be a saint. I like everything being all mixed up in me; i don't have quarrels with life like that; I accept we're tangled. In my heart, i was peace."
"There's no purity on this earth from ego or greed and i never set out to be a saint. I like everything being all mixed up in me; i don't have quarrels with life like that; I accept we're tangled. In my heart, i was peace."
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