Is being called
This is an annoying thing that Twitter does.
Who wrote that? Is there a person called Twitter who wrote it? Of course not, so who did? It looks like a diktat from god. That matters because it’s not neutral fact-reporting, it’s tendentious. The word “cisgender” is new jargon which is meaningless and redundant unless you buy into the nonsensical novel dogma that sex is not a matter of what body you have but of “identity.” Without that dogma there is no need for any “cisgender” in front of “man” or “woman” and it doesn’t mean anything when it is there. We might as well start talking about cis daffodils and cis squirrels and cis oak trees. A “cisgender male serial killer” is just a male serial killer. Male serial killers have featured in quite a few movies over the decades, and nobody ever felt any need to clarify that they were cis male serial killers as opposed to…um…that other kind, whatever that might be.
And who are all these reviewers who are saying what Twitter says they are saying? List them, link to them, don’t just anonymously announce them without any substantiation.
And what exactly is “an anti-trans plotline”?
And two uses of the word “community” in one sentence is overkill. The “cis” community says fuck off.
I can imagine a Trans Activist writing a book like that to make the point that genuine transwomen are sweet and harmless. Every single time a woman has been attacked by an apparent transwoman — it was really a man in a dress! In every conceivable case!
And then they could fill the book with whatever they wanted to make the point that TWAW and here’s one way to know that: you can tell a pretender by looking at violence. While this may not cohere with their insistence on eliminating all gatekeeping regarding who’s trans or not, what’s yet another contradiction thrown in to the mix?
Also, “people are saying” is worthless if the people are saying the thing for bad reasons. What makes the book transphobic? And if someone ever deigns to give such an explanation, can that explanation be applied to other books not declared transphobic? If so, why the discrepancy?
Very likely, whatever explanation is given, the real reasoning is ‘because Rowling wrote it’.
Another language trick that galled me is “pointing out that the book has an antitrans plotline”. In short, we are told this in a way that assumes the truth of the statement. More accurate would be they are claiming, not they are pointing out. The only reason to use pointing out is to imbue the statement with the aura of truth without actually having to do the work of establishing that it is, indeed, true.
Those too. A lot of sneaky manipulative wording in that one short passage – with no byline.
It is annoying.
From now on, the thought police (thought police community?) will intensively scan everything she writes for “transphobia” — and of course will find it, whether it’s there or not, because in a book-length work there will always be something that can be taken as evidence for whatever you’re looking for if you’re looking hard enough.
And naturally they present statements of opinion as statements of ambient objective reality, preferably in the passive voice, so they’re not limited by being identified with a specific person whose views might be questioned. “It is bad” always sounds like it has more gravitas than “I don’t like it”, even though in most cases they mean the same.
On the bright side, this is a review that is simply that. How refreshing!
Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith review – a cosy blast from the past – (The Guardian)
JK Rowling’s engaging duo return for a cold case full of misdirection and simmering emotional tension
I love that way of putting it. Will have to steal it.
@J.A. – respect to Rowling, but other Cormoran Strike novels I’ve read are way too long. I imagine, as she is such a huge name, she doesn’t get edited. 900 pages! Cripes.
Lethal White was dramatised on the BBC – last episode on Sunday. It was quite enjoyable, though with rather stock characters – nasty Tory minister with nasty posh family and nasty bullying son for instance. And I do get fed up with Strike’s posh ex girlfriend. On the plus side, Holliday Grainger, who plays Strike’s sidekick Robyn, cycles very elegantly through London and the activist and hippy shop scenes are good.
Lethal White does have a plot twist (SPOILER ALERT) of mistaking a girl for a boy. It’s quite common in detective stories. Agatha Christie used it sometimes, a chap putting on a wig and lipstick so that he would be misidentified. It’s also the big plot point of Josephine Tey’s To Love and Be Wise – only that was (SPOILER ALERT) a woman disguised as a man.
How can anyone comment on a book they haven’t read? It’s a very basic way of making an idiot of yourself, fulminating about second hand opinions of books. With other things we have to rely on other people’s knowledge, whether they are journalists, historians, scientists or lawyers, but a book is something you can have first-hand knowledge of. Not that I’m going to wade through 900 pages so as to have a well-based opinion..
Yes – frankly I don’t think much of Rowling as a writer at all. She may be a good storyteller, but for my taste her writing is too bad to keep reading. I found one of her recent novels in a Little Library the other week and the story sounded interesting but then…bad writing, so I gave up after a few pages.
I’ve used that myself in one of my plays. OH NO! KILL THE TERF!
@iknlast – apologies, it’s mistaking a boy for a girl. Is that less TERFy?
KBPlayer @8:
Straying off topic here, but this reminded me of a line from an underrated film, Metropolitan by Whit Stillman: “I don’t read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists’ ideas as well as the critics’ thinking.”
Of course, the character saying it (Tom Townsend) is, while a generally likeable guy, also a teenager going through that pretentious I’m-now-an-expert-on-some-idea-I-just-encountered phase, so your point stands.
Oddly enough, I also think Rowling’s fiction could use some generous paring by an editor. However her recent essays are quite well written and thought out, and not overlong. So she can write.
That’s been a problem for me… I’d like to buy her book to support her and to improve its sales, but I have zero interest in reading it, and while the Harry Potter books were great for teenage me I don’t find the lives of children at all interesting in my mid thirties.
J. A. That’s true. I guess some people just write better when they’re not writing fiction. Orwell for instance – his early novels were mediocre at best, but his essays and discursive books (Road to Wigan Pier, Homage to Catalonia) were always top quality. Virginia Woolf, too…(that’s heresy).
@Screechy – I really loved Metropolitan and was trying the other day to see if someone had slyly released it on Youtube.
@JA – she can write a perfectly clear-headed essay. However I don’t think she’s particularly great in that line, whether in style or substance compared to eg Zadie Smith.
@Ophelia – hmmm I think Orwell’s early novels are still quite readable – Coming Up for Air is a reasonable example of the decay of England novel.
One of Ruth Rendell’s crime stories, A Sleeping Life, is built around a woman living a life as man.
934 pages! 3 times as long as a reasonable length for a crime novel.
KBP – I agree his novels are readable – I found all of them interesting, and read them more than once. But artistically they’re not great. They’re clunky in a way that his essays aren’t.
KBP, it’s no knock to not write an essay up to say Zadie Smith’s level, anymore than it’s a knock not to be as good an essayist as Edward Hoagland. Rowling’s is still good and is making people who actually read it think, if they’re being honest readers themselves. That many of them aren’t is left as an exercise for their readers.
KBP, all three of Metropolitan, Barcelona, and Last Days of Disco are available on Amazon streaming video, though sadly not on Amazon Prime. Metro is supposedly free as part of a seven-day trial of Showtime via Amazon, and the other two are cheap rentals.
For those not familiar, these aren’t part of a trilogy per se; they’re just all written and directed by Whit Stillman, and re-use some of the same actors. Very much films about White People Problems (and Metropolitan is specifically about NYC “debutantes”), but they’re fun, witty, quotable films. Two monkey paws up!
@Infidel753 #5
From now on, the thought police (thought police community?) will intensively scan everything she writes for “transphobia” — and of course will find it, whether it’s there or not, because in a book-length work there will always be something that can be taken as evidence for whatever you’re looking for if you’re looking hard enough.
Confirmation bias is a helluva drug.
The criticism of her, that she’s not a great writer but a great storyteller, came to mind when reading the serialized version of The Ickabog recently. I can see that point of view; some problems with the writing, but a heck of a good story. I plan to purchase a copy of the American edition sometime.
Re #14, buying books you don’t want to read: I was thinking maybe of buying them for the local library, if that’s even possible.
@Screechy – thanks for the info. What chance of a Stillman festival at my local arthouse (if it ever re-opens) as I haven’t seen the other 2. I really do miss going to the cinema. I like watching films without any distractions possible. The NYC debutantes were really a highly engaging bunch of young people.
Nick Cohen has a column in The Spectator. The ‘transphobic trans serial killer’ claim rests on a single paragraph in which a witness cannot describe the killer because, on that one occasion, he wore a wig and a ‘woman’s’ coat.
I’ve found Rowling an easy writer to avoid, after starting the first ‘Potter’ book and putting it down.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/j-k-rowling-s-latest-novel-isn-t-transphobic-