Will’s Reviews > Rakesfall > Status Update

“Objects are not discrete. The perception of time is an illusion. Seemingly biological realities are constructed: gender is only genre, race is a race to the bottom, species is as arbitrary as specie. Seeming social realities are machinations of power hiding their inverse: slavery is called freedom to disguise its exploitation; ignorance is called strength, to champion political illiteracy; and most of all, most of all, war is called peace, the peace brought by murder, the peace of the unmarked mass grave.”

First off, just not well written. “The perception of time is an illusion”? Obviously! what do we think perception means?? “Machinations of power hiding their inverse” is just so clunky and overwrought . the whole section, actually is just so overwrought. and (youll have to take my word for it) this kind of grand narrative, super dramatic language is just totally unjustified in the narrative, completely unearned! It’s like, all these points are obvious to the target reader, so why repeat them? they’re not given in a narrative interesting way, just asserted. Those who already agree aren’t being given anything deeper, any further realization, any complexification. And those who don’t agree aren’t going to have their minds changed by mere assertion. the book is just so full of this kind of thing: grand philosophical declarations that are actually quite obvious without any narrative justification or interesting framing. just feels really juvenile :(

Ok I'm going to say it again because I'm getting worked up and have the nasty habit of perseverating. Author has this handful of interesting ideas. There are going to be readers who have already given these thoughts some thought. Simply asserting them doesn't do anything for these readers. And then there are going to be readers who haven't given these ideas any thoughts or who disagree. Is a mere assertion really going to change their minds? Like come on! It just honestly feels masturbatory: the author just wants us to know he knows these things without putting in the work of making them narratively interesting, without the work of casting them in a new and interesting light (Also, notice how annoying the increasingly emphatic clauses stacked with commas is? I HATE THIS CONSTRUCTION and he won't stop using it!)

That being said the section with Grandma Sits was really funny and well written. So mixed bag. But these sections of grand philosophical assertions with no narrative justification or anything interesting about them drive me up the wall.