fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5622 ]

[ SECRET POST #5622 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5622 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 51 secrets from Secret Submission Post #805.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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What is currently on your bookshelf, kindle, phone?

Factfulness by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund. Needed to read something to raise my faith in humanity.

I Want to Be a Wall by Honami Shirono. Looking forward to the next volume.

Dune Encyclopedia and The Eyes of the Dragon.

Triangle Strategy on my Switch.

It's supposed to be a strategy game, hence the name, but seriously most of the time it feels more like a cut-scene only video that I'm reading. I'm not complaining though, I just love that game!

"Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov

I'm glad I didn't read this book when I was young and without context about the unreliable narrator. I don't know how I would have received this book when I was young, but reading it now, it really makes me wonder how anyone can like Humbert Humbert at all? His descriptions of watching children at the beginning of the book is so fucking creepy. How can anyone want to follow him and think his love for Delores/Lolita was anything but a disgusting monster wanting to do whatever he wanted to a child?

Ah, I hated him so much! I don't know why any of the other characters put up with him, even not knowing that he's a child abuser, he's still an arsehole!

AYRT

Right?? Humbert just sounds so full of himself and so overly defensive when talking about things he did or thoughts he had. "I know it's wrong but..." as if whatever he says afterwards is a good reason to absolve him of anything else that comes afterwards.

Lolita is one of my favourite books of all time because its unreliable narrator is sooo good. This book does what it intended to do perfectly. It makes you sick in the stomach. I read this book when I was 13-15 years old (I don't remember exactly) and I got the author's intention even then, when I had almost no context whatsoever. The story and the protagonist himself is so revolting and so well written.

People romanticizing this books as a "love story" don't have any reading and comprehension skill. Or they're just seeing what they want to/what they are in Humbert.
Nabokov is a genius and it's a shame that some people diss this book without even reading it.

AYRT

I watched the Adrian Lyne version when I was young because of the intense interest around its release from entertainment news, MTV and VH1 spots. I was addicted to TV and movies and my parents didn't pay attention to ANYTHING I consumed; they were immigrants from Asia so they had no interest in pop culture nor could I engage with them about interests I had. I was under the impression that the story was "racy and controversial" so I was very curious as to WHY it was deemed to be that. 11-12YO me was so confused. I knew it was wrong the relationship between Humbert and Lolita, but at the same time I was VERY aware that the movie was setup to make Humbert seem blameless and Lolita as the one pushing for "more" in the relationship and I didn't know how to feel. I wasn't sure if I liked the relationship or if I should even find it hot because I certainly knew grown men around me scared me and I didn't want any sort of focused attention from them. But the way the movie setup the relationship and the depiction of Lolita in this version made me feel like I should want to like it, so young me likely internalized that ("the young, inexperienced girl who is playful with an older, intelligent man is a sexy risque thing worth exploring; older men and younger women relationships are complex" when in reality it's way more complicated as well as the situation between Humbert and Dolores was very much NOT that).

Reading it after a couple decades of sort of existing with the legacy and iconography of "Lolita", it is really sad to know how the culture shaped around this "love story" narrative. It's...something that people can fall into relating to Humbert or finding his reasoning and excuses as rational. But I suppose that was Nabokov's point. People are so fixated with the abuser they don't allow room to see the horror of their actions.

I mean, decades of jokes about "Harvey Weinstein is a creepy assaulter" ran around Hollywood. Woody Allen still has a career. Roman Polanski still has a career. Louise CK still has a career. James Franco still has a career (and his friends will publicly claim not to be associated with him anymore but still silently work with him BTS).

We as a society are fucked up. Nabokov called it out decades ago and we're still not doing anything about it.

Project Hail Mary. I really liked The Martian. I know Andy Weir's style is a bit divisive and rubs people the wrong way but I still enjoyed The Martian despite it and Hail Mary is going the same way.

(I have't read Artemis because I was kinda put off when I saw people saying he really fucks up having a female protagonist.)

Anyway, I needed to read something from a familiar/fun author in a favourite genre because I just read Tender is the Flesh and whew, I knew that wasn't going to be a fun read but it's ROUGH.

The Midnight Lock by Jeffery Deaver (book).
Venus In Furs and Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children (ebooks).

This massive Lynda La Plante book of three stories based on episodes of Prime Suspect (should have a re watch after this).

Just finished Celluloid Indians by Neva Kirkpatrick (about the history of Native American depictions in film), currently starting an anthology of magazine articles, reviews, and essays about punk rock called Ranters and Crowd Pleasers edited by Griel Marcus.

For some reason I'm having a really hard time paying attention to fiction atm but I've really been enjoying the nonfiction and media theory/analysis I've been reading.

Just reread All Systems Red.

Then, since I'm waiting for the next Murderbot books from the library, finished the first two books in Iain Banks Culture series--not sure if I like them; they seem heavy on the tell and light on the show, and I'm not a big fan of any of the characters.

Currently reading Sorcery and Cecelia, a YA fantasy Regency romance; I read the series years ago and forgot most of the plot.

Seeker's Mask. (Well, listening as an audiobook.) One of its influences was Leiber's Lankhmar series, and there is much that is weird and wonderful about the worldbuilding.

(Walking trees! They're not plot significant, they just... do.)

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik on my Libby app.

And... currently trying to find a copy of (and shaking my head for not picking it up when a neighbor left it in the building lobby for takes) If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery, by Farah Jasmine Griffith, a book on Billie Holiday and art.

*laughs*
I have so many books on my shelf and phone and... Do I read them though?
I've been reading a book about mythology and Goidelic languages, but it's so full of itself so I am dropping it. I just need to return it to library though. Agh

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[ SECRET POST #5622 ]

What are you reading?

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