Sweet Manna
by rsbakker
Aphorism of the Day: The Second Law of Cranks states that for every crank, there exists an opposite crank – an ‘anti-crank.’ Unfortunately, rather than annihilating each other on contact, they have the effect of splitting the universe in two. (The First Law of Cranks (for those of you unfamiliar with epistemological physics) states that for every Opinion, no matter how preposterous, there is at least one crank who will call it Gospel).
[Just a note: I actually posted the following question on the Dude’s ROH website. “I’m guessing you agree not all accusations of misogyny are equal: what criteria do you use to distinguish genuine accusations from spurious?” The question never made it past moderation. Too funny. For someone who claims to be a troll he certainly seems shy! ]
Now this is almost too good to be true! I ask for a liberal Theo and lo…
Should I be suspicious? I admit, I’m having a hard time deciding whether this is serious, or simply provocation for it’s own sake. Either way this guy makes Theo’s Straw Bakker look like the tin man. And his M.O! Logically decisive swearing, and some of the most cogent name-calling I’ve ever encountered. How do you engage someone who, unlike, Theo, doesn’t even pretend to be rational?
I tell ya, the stock some people put in pure attitude. What would you call it, the arguing ad na-na-nana-naa?
Does anyone know who this guy is? I’d be interested in drawing him out on his motivations. Just what does he think he’s accomplishing with a site like this… Does he care?
The strange thing is how… I dunno, flattered I feel. I’m not so sure that I should, but getting blasted by kooks like this makes me think I gotta be doing something right. It could be they’re the only one’s willing to waste the energy!
Could you imagine if a sizable portion of the planet decided that the strength of a claim depended on the amount of vitriol they put behind it. It would be almost as funny as it would be tragic. Don’t people realize that the only thing cheaper than belief is attitude?
Three Pound Brain 
There’s nothing unique about it. He or she is just making the old argument about you being misogynistic because the setting is misogynistic. I’ve always found it rather silly, but there’s a camp of people out there who think that “depiction” equals “endorsement”.
They also point out that you tend to be rather . . . verbose in your responses. I’m sorry, but that’s true.
The same type of tin eared reader thought Nietzsche was a nihilist because he wrote about its dangers and overcoming it.
I read the blog which is note than I can say whether the liberal Theo read your books. Tsk.
I’m still thinking it’s a joke. The site is called “Requires only that you hate” and seeing how this person only read 5 pages of your book then took cues from your own interviews I’m pretty sure they just chose you as the next joke punching bag.
One things for sure: if it’s not a joke then that would make it even funnier.
One more thing: I think hardcore fantasy is generally male dominated, but I’ve gotten three of my female friends to read your books, and not a single one has so much as mentioned that they thought you might be a misogynist. They all did really like the work though.
I know the phrase “requires only that you hate” from Warhammer 40,000. I’d assume it originates there; I’m not sure if it’s significant or not, though.
His tag-cloud is a thing of beauty.
Mr. Bakker, do you want to be “as good as a feminist as Joss Whedon”?
Wait, Joss Whedon is a feminist now? I mean, I’ve heard it vaguely mentioned – mostly by Joss Whedon – but holding him up as an example of the feminist movement? That’s really quite depressing.
Equality Now would disagree with you.
I found this on the Referrers List. Alas, just another troll. Someday they’ll have a DSM entry for these lightweights. There’s gotta be a real version of this dude out there.
This guy probably gets plenty of chuckles out of the fact that people take him seriously. But the trouble is that it’s entirely _believable_ that someone like him would take himself seriously even if he, as a matter of fact, does not.
The internet — and by extension, of course, the actual world — is brimming with people spouting all sorts of craziness. Those of us inclined to take this seriously (to take seriously the symptoms of humanity’s fucked-up-ness that are writ wide acorss the internets), it’s difficult not to fall into these sorts of traps.
Few things are easier than lampooning the earnest. Sometimes there might be a reason to do so. Certainly fanboys are sometimes a tad on the ridiculous side. But I don’t see what’s accomplished if one has to first make _oneself_ ridiculous in order to get a rise… Perhaps it’s just for the chuckles. Perhaps _he_ masterbates while reading his own blog.
Probably he’s too busy caring about SEXISM, AN IMPORTANT ISSUE THAT YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT NEARLY AS MUCH AS HE DOES! SEXIST!
Well at least he gets to feel smarter than you for a wee bit. Maybe he will get entrapped by the police one day and then laugh at their “trolling” lol
why are these guys such haters, they obviosly look up information about you, enough to even read your blog, so why do they even care; especially if they haven’t even read your material. the world is filled with people like this, those who bash things they don’t understand
Here’s a hint, boyo; while it’s possible to explore feminism through creating a fictional misogynistic culture, it takes a good bit of finesse to do.
I’m going to say when I read TDTCB, I didn’t know if the author/Scott was reveling in it all. The concerns of the author seem to be entirely absent from the text? As I’ve said before, it was Akka who carried me through. This blog guy seems…a mental chaos storm? Perhaps he just didn’t have/find his own totem in there to carry him through? Or maybe I read too charitably?
Moving past charitable, his claim that people don’t have to read the books as intended and yet he uses how he decided to read them as a way of showing the author is sexist?
Is the whole idea of ‘the outside’ in the books, where desire becomes more and more the same of reality, supposed to be a representation of this thinking?
I can actually imagine, briefly, what it would be like to miss the self referencing logic in there and instead be experiencing absolute ephany. It would just be soooo clear! It’s basically a sealed bubble, cut off from any further influence from reality. Both how you decide to read an author and what that author is saying are one and the same. It must feeeeel so comfortable – I kind of wish for it myself! Sad, eh?
Could you imagine if a sizable portion of the planet decided that the strength of a claim depended on the amount of vitriol they put behind it.
Scott, you clearly didn’t go to the same highschool I did. Granted it wasn’t the world, but it felt like it at the time.
Woops, about to slip back to charitable reading…
Why do all neckbeards trot out this one? “You don’t know me, you don’t know meeeee.” Either it’s their wife, or their mom, or their goldfish, who thinks they are just dandily perfect human beings and would never, ever do or say anything that’d be sexist/racist/homophobic. The thought that people might be remotely justified at all never strikes them. It’s simply not possible. After all, people who know them say so. The rest of us who simply derive his attitudes from what he says and does online, well, we could never be magical enough to truly know him.
The thing is, both sides here are simply leaving no room for being uncertain. He’s 100% sure of his conclusion, not 98% sure but willing to humour some 2% weirdness he isn’t aware of making it otherwise.
Scott, it even seems absurd to me to suggest you be uncertain as to your own motives. But you’ve made posts yourself, IIRC, with the line ‘Even nazi’s wonder what all the fuss is about’. Everything always seems reasonable. I guess I’ll sound all hinkey in describing an awkward thingie; the idea not so much to doubt your own motives, but to look at it from his position and doubt your motives whilst looking from his eyes. Think of it from the orcs perspective, in his little dungeon, what does he see when the heavily armed and armoured man walks in? Think of the blog post the orc would write?
I’m saying this because I presume guys like this are some of your target audience. If not, bah, can skip it all – the guys a chaos mind, to maintain his social position he needs to be and not even have a 2% doubt.
Or okay, I should have read that referers link first. Sorry, I have a weird gap in trying to identify the desire of trolling with this much effort? Perhaps it fills in for a lack of a fathers love or something.
Well, it was funny…
Weird, I just feel an absence?
Wow, i read the link first…Totally thought the guy was serious…Well, i defended ya bakker, just a regular old fanboy here….OH and btw my pic in my twitter account is my Khellus inspired tattoo…thats how much i like PON
Bless you. But the whole point is to gull people into defending – the way I halfass did. It’s a waste of neurophysiological resources, my friend.
Or maybe it’s just fun? You know, FOR THE LULZ?
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-did-it-for-the-lulz#.Tks2FWFc-So
Sounds like the trolls are getting themselves ideologically organized. Nomenclature? I await the manifesto…
I think it’ll read “Why so serious?”
I find it hilarious that you’ve all assumed the writer is male…
Given the stupidity and the vitriol, I thought that was the safe way to go. But then that’s the point, isn’t it? There is no safe way!
I find it hilarious you pick up Bakker for doing so but not Zach H upthread. Agenda anyone?
Learn to read properly you fool.
My bad
It’s true: I did — and do — assume the blogger is a man. But I did think it was a man _pretending_ to be a woman. Silly, perhaps, but in my experience, it’s invariably men who waste time on stupid crap like that website. Also, in my experience, it’s men who tend to find pigheaded vulgarity amusing.
But I’m sexist that way.
“It’s true: I did — and do — assume the blogger is a man. But I did think it was a man _pretending_ to be a woman. ”
After calling me “sweetums” and “darling” in the response to my comment (as well as the author’s attitude) I started thinking that the author was a drag queen.
Lol.
I love the assumption that someone pointing out your sexism must be a man. WOMEN wouldn’t dare point out such a thing. Or be able to understand anything about your book or its themes. You’re a bit unclear there.
Dudes like you give me a headache.
Working out how you’ve managed to assume I’m a “dude” has given me a headache.
Doesn’t really sell the whole “I’m not in denial about my sexism/gender issues,” claim though.
I take sexism quite seriously – seriously enough to waste my time arguing against real sexists. So when someone pops up claiming that I’m sexist, I assume they must be a dude, because dudes are generally the lazier gender, statistically more prone to make unfounded assumptions.
Has it occurred to you that you actually might be wrong?
Bakker you’re clearly sexist dude, making jokes that a woman can’t understand. oops
Given I know the person in question IRL… nope. Pretty sure I’m right.
And pretty sure I’m also a girl. Also pretty sure it wouldn’t have taken much effort to look and find out what the correct pronoun was.
How much should a respectable critic read of an author before accusing him or her of something as professionally and personally injurious as misogyny? 10% 50% 100%?
You knew them? Cause they turned out to be not who they say they are, did you “know” the fake persona, could you tell us who they really were?
thus does earnestness clamber into its own rape dumpster. welcome to these internetz, mister bakker. never engage with the deliberately facile unless you like a public plumbing of your orifices. sincerity + pride = butthurtedness in the algebra of trolling, and since the protestations of the earnest are indistinguishable from the manipulations of the counter provocateur, it’s a little folie a deux simultanee that’s ultimately just embarrassing from pretty much EVERY outsider’s perspective.
short form: “methinks the lady doth protest too much”
I’ve been done this road before… Many times. You get callouses in all the wrong places.
I have been following her blog for a couple months now, since not long after it began. Though I do not always agree with her reviews and she sometimes targets books that I am a fan of, the acerbic quality of her opinions is entertaining. And that is as far as my appreciation goes. I no more trust her opinion on books than I trust Yahtzee Croshaw’s opinion on video games.
This review or rant or whatever it might be is something to shrug at and ignore or just laugh at. It is nothing to get worked up over and nothing to defend against… she is recycling secondhand arguments from the position of having read only five pages of THE DARKNESS THAT COMES BEFORE. It is about as worthwhile as an one-star Amazon review complaining about the amount of cursing and sex found within.
Psychologists have found that people will generally think a claim they have heard three times or more is true, regardless of the context they hear it in (we have a much harder time with circumstances than claims). So I suppose I should be concerned about this misogyny meme: the problem is that I’m likely only adding another repetition each time I respond…
In this case, I really just thought I had found a liberal version of Theo. No such luck. A troll is, well, a troll. Whatever their purported agenda, it’s really just about getting attention.
It’ll be curious to see how well her blog ages.
That was great…props 🙂
Hmmm, with all due respect Mr Bakker, but I have the feeling here that people are exploiting the fact that you’re giving them a platform (i.e. backlinks to their weird / crappy blogs) to voice their (true or fake) frustrations.
It puts me in mind of this old-time classic: http://xkcd.com/386/
Quote: “How do you engage someone who, unlike, Theo, doesn’t even pretend to be rational? ”
I think the only logical answer here is that you don’t.
Of course, if you’d like to indulge in a little bit of “na-na-na-na” yourself, I’d suggest you have a developer write a little bit of code which scapes your Amazon Sales Rank for all your books every 6 hours, calculates a rough idea of how many copies are sold, multiplies it by a low number (so as not to appear greedy here, see?) and posts an comment on this guys blog along the lines of: “I made XXXXXX dollars in the last 6 hours from my books that talk about raping people. Kisses, Scott” 🙂
If only that were true! In all likelihood, this reputation has cost my sales dearly. Not only are the majority of fantasy readers women, the vast, vast majority can’t be bothered to do anything more than tag the rumour – then, forgetting the dubious context (such as a review of a whole corpus based on five pages) they initially encountered it in, simply assume it was true. “Swiftboating” is so popular in politics now because it is so effective.
But is there a number of readers reached that would satisfy you? Or is it an endless hunger? If you had reached X amount, then any sales lost by this don’t matter.
I might have still read one of your books even though I like “Requires only that you Hate’s blog, and consider myself a feminist. That is why I was reading your defense… then I read the above comment, and see that in your opinion “not only are the majority of fantasy readers women… the vast majority can’t can’t be bothered… simply assume it is true.” Do you not see how this sounds not only completely whiny but seriously condescending, and sounds like an insult to the vast majority of readers (who in your words if it’s fantasy are women as well!). By your own non-fiction words you sound like a whiny douche, and a wanker like the blogger wrote, so I will definitely not waste time or money on your work… Learn to some dignity and maturity!! Big tip: don’t bite the hand that feeds you!
Hmmm. Funny stuff. Name-calling. Baiting. Diagnosing tone, even though everyone who studies the web will tell you tone is the hardest thing to diagnose. Anything but responding to the substance of the post.
Dignity and maturity seem to be in short supply around here, I agree!
Weirdly it was just over the weekend I managed to find the “Bakker and Woman” thread(s) which are quoted or referred to in some way.
I first got your books off the back of a suggestion from Dyalanfanatic (Larry i think his name is) on WOTmania , ages ago, I believe just TDTCB and TWP were out with TTT due soonish.
Man I didn’t like them at all. I think Dylan asked how I found them and i just said “really really dark dude”. Fortunately once TTT came out I decided to do a complete re-read and now I knew the story and wasn’t worrying about all the mad names I could actually concentrate on the text and effectively it was like reading a new book and i enjoyed the new books very much, considering they were free now.
I’m not really that smart or a particularly good reader so i’m not sure how much weight should be put on my opinion. The accusations flung about in the thread never occured to me, and having looked at them i don’t really see it still.
Seems simple to me, don’t talk about books you’ve not read, and if you’re just an average guy like me maybe read them twice, cause my opinion changed drastically over 2 readings.
To give something a second reading, particularly when you were dubious about it after the first, sounds like the mark of a good reader to me?
Or perhaps an extemely lazy shopper student with no money for another book 😉
Hehe! Sometimes adversity inadvertantly makes us act as better men?
The troll jerked, strained against its fetters. Even now, provocation stared from his sockets across untold leagues of digital space. He need only respond, Scött knew, and it would be all over. He need only sing his song of delusion and belief, and the whole Internet would burn.
“Not I, not even Vox, can undo what you suffer, Scött. Your degradation is your own.”
Those grasping eyes, wedged between shelves of bark! Compassion and wisdom as deep as pits. Something within Scött shrank from them, beseeched him to throw up his arms. He must not see!
“What are you saying?” Scött cried.
The Ent had become a shadow beneath the coffee shop wallpaper. At long last he turned to the writhing obscenity on the laptop in front of them.
“This, Scött …” He not so much spoke as he dictated, every word an edict. “This is a diversion.”
Thin branches, like the legs of spiders, flickered across the keys. The web browser was gone, replaced by the stark whiteness of a blank document, its cursor blinking as if in accusation. Scött fell to his knees, weeping.
“This is your task. You, Scött, have a novel to write.”
Yes. I fucking do… Several of them in fact. But now I have Ents on top of Trolls to contend with!
I think our liberal friend confuses the misogyny of certain characters within the novels with the mindset of our dear writer.
However, this ‘a plague on all your houses’ approach is ultimately self-defeating. The interweb is the tower of babel (continuing your neolithic monotheistic old book reference) and while it can be annoying to see people totally misunderstand the giste (or even philosophy) of your books, the reality is that one will find it hard to change everybody’s hardwired belief structures.
Also, it can be a bad idea to concentrate too much on those who ‘get it’ and laud plaudits on your writing. Instead, I would advise concentrating on improving your art.
Being of Canadian stock, I would imagine you’re aware of the Kipling poem ‘If’. It does have an Imperialist slant to it, however, he does say:
“If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:”
To summarise. Fuck em and finish the trilogy.
(I want Akka to fry Kellhus’ perfect almost-Aryan ass. The Consult are misunderstood.)
Unrelated, but Scott, this comic reminds me of your writing:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2340
Which reminds me of
Some evidence there that the parrot is not responding by wrote.
Sometimes I wonder, if we hadn’t won the intelligence race, what other species would have? And how quickly would their civilisation have made extinct a little know species of naked ape…
Eh. I have known a hardcore Troll in real life. I watched him ply his trade in person. Ironically, he was a pretty nice guy–very blunt, odd sense of humor, but you wouldn’t mind having a beer with him. For some reason when people got angry over words (just words), even one single word, he would laugh and laugh. There was something about the incongruity of his complete lack of effort and emotional investment, contrasted with others passion that made for hilarity.
It honestly wasn’t for attention. I think that is a misconception. If anything, he liked anonymity because it allowed him to drop chaos bombs out of the blue.
Shawn, he sounds like sociopath. Superficially charming. They can sit there listening to you for ages yet not give a crap, simply waiting for what they came to get from you – I’ve read accounts from one giving the reveal from behind their eyes. Beware.
Ah, found the link I read that sociopaths account at…
http://askdrrobert.dr-robert.com/psychopath.html
Act like an adult, Bakker.
Do you mean turn my back on the whole thing? That’s probably the most rational thing.
Arthur that is a bit ambiguous. What do you mean grow up? Did you really have a point or are you just sniping?
I love “The Dudes” belief that she and she alone is the revelation of feminism and that we should go to her and receive her divine revelation. What a over stuffed kook.
I didn’t tell him to grow up; I told him to act his age.
Bakker seems to get it. He knows exactly what “the most rational thing” to do in this situation is, for an adult and especially for an author and a public figure.
I don’t know why you’re having trouble, here. Is it the definition of the word “adult?” Or is it the implication that your idol’s response to an inconsequential review might have been less than so?
And, yes, I’m sniping.
Thats what I get for typing and taking care of the kids at the same time. I am sorry Authur
My idol? Not quite, but if that helps you better frame your insults then by all means have at it. You can also go over to your mentor’s blog and join in the giant mutual hand job that you all seem to be giving each other. Please try not to compliment The Dude too much or her head may get so heavy that it will crash into her keyboard.
Uh…
Who, exactly, do you think is my mentor? When have I complimented the person in question? Finally: do you always make assumptions about somebody whom you have mistaken as your rhetorical opponent? That could lead to a testy situation if you actually get into a real argument.
When I asked for citations to his/her claims about Bakker’s misogyny, my posts were not posted. Guess I hit a nerve over there.
One of many, I think.
Phph. A poor man’s Kalbear. I don’t know why you waste your time, Scott, but I guess as long as it’s not impeding progress on book 3…
With Kalbear, I think the two of us actually did migrate to some middle ground. Engagement, as frustrating as I’m sure it was for the both of us, actually paid real dividends. Here, I think we’re dealing with an entirely different species, one where ‘management’ becomes far more important than engagement. The trick, it seems, is to find ways to make their irrationality too obvious to ignore, and so discredit them.
I find the Dudes arguements to be very similar Inrilatas’s arguement with Maithanet. The meaning of what he says means nothing too him. The Dude is very similar the context of her arguements are meaningless she only seek to defile.
I’d like to propose this to you. You assumed the critic was a man because, to you, only a man would read your work and critique it — you used the cute excuse of saying that only a man could commit such folly and be so mean, but I don’t buy it. If your work explains feminism so thoroughly and concisely that, from the impression I’ve gotten from many of your posts, silly women who disagree with you should be learning something from it (and that we simply don’t “understand” it if we don’t like what you have to say), why on earth would your readership be almost entirely men, to the point where you can safely assume that every reviewer is a man? I hate to compare one author to another, but Ursula le Guin (plus other feminist sci-fi writers) has a huge female readership, and she writes primarily in the “male” genres of sci-fi and fantasy. And yet she (rightly) gets the kudos for feminism where you don’t.
Tell me, why can I understand le Guin’s feminism and not yours? Why do so many other people “get” her and not you? Could it be that, as a woman, she’s speaking from her experience with sexism? On your end, as a supposed deep-thinking feminist warrior, making assumptions about a female critic and her friend being a man because a woman would never disagree with you looks pretty bad. In fact, it looks terrible, and from the carry on from you and your buddies (one of whom made jibes about her being a drag-queen) made after I suggested the fact that “he” could, and certainly was a “she”, and after her friend came to confirm it, I daresay you’re not really feminist(s) at all. On top of that, you complain about the critic not reading your work thoroughly and understanding it, yet you don’t even bother to look her details up and find out that she’s a female. It would have taken you mere moments — hell, if I could do it and I didn’t even write a blog post about her, then you ought to have.
Point is, you’re not as wonderful as you think you are. If you are really a feminist, which I sincerely doubt, then you should probably be a little worried about your DIRECT treatment of women in the real world, not just the ones you invent and put on paper. That’s easy, because you get to control them. But you couldn’t control what a REAL woman thought of you, and you didn’t like it, so you resorted to writing a blog post about how stupid and hateful “he” is. It’s nice that you’re trying, but it doesn’t mean much when I can read your “feminist” books then go on to your blog and find out you’re just another douchy guy with women-issues on the net.
Wow that did not sound like the rantings of an elitest. You and the dude just have this issued sewed up. Very sad your little attacks “just the ones you invent and put on paper. That’s easy, because you get to control them. But you couldn’t control what a REAL woman thought of you”. Seriously how pathetic an attack. That accusation could be launched against any writer. You are cherry picking your points and then exagerating them. Very sad indeed.
“I’d like to propose this to you. You assumed the critic was a man because, to you, only a man would read your work and critique it ”
Theory does not match up with empirical evidence, mainly the 4 thread 80 page “bakker and woman” series where there are women who are the critics.
You’re suggesting that even though Bakker has strong memories of woman being critics, he thinks women can’t be critics. This is facile
I could go point for point but what is the point, you’ve made up your mind this is obvious by the way you make weird facile claims like
“Why do so many other people “get” her and not you?”
There are no figures for who gets who, loads of people “get” Bakker too, randomly making up vague statistics (which 67% of folk do) isn’t an argument, it;s an example of your brain cherry picking stuff, you’re speaking to score points not to solve the issue. You’re interested in being correct not what the actual truth is.
I don’t know if Bakker books are mysonginistic, cause he hasn’t finished them yet, and the theme of modernism (Kellhus) and Woman (Esme) haven’t had their stories told… yet.
For some reason i see a lot of crabs in a bucket here.
John,
I don’t know that I get her either. Her tactics seem similar to Rush LImbaugh’s. They both use cherry picked points and lots of insults, which to me detracts from any valid point that she may have. At time She comes across to me as an elitest, by stating who should be allowed to vote and who shouldn’t.
Let me get this straight: Someone calls me a pretentious, pompous misogynist and condemns all my work on the basis of (mis)reading the first 5 pages of my first book. Calls me names, insists that people have told her what I’m ‘really like’ IRL, and on and on.
And I reply by calling her ‘Dude,’ and that just proves everything she says? It’s an example of how I treat women IRL. Is this really your argument?
Jordan, your pretty sure someone else can be wrong (Scott, in this case).
Can only other people be wrong, never you?
Could you ever fire an accusation of sexism and yet actually it was miss aimed? Or do you have a god like incapacity for failure at such?
I know you’ll say “Well yes, but…” and repeat you charge/spend considerably more time repeating your charge than considering whether it could be missapplied somehow. But it’d be nice to hear, anyway.
And if you ever did say you missapplied the charge of sexism, I think we wouldn’t ostracize you or demand that now we decide your mind for you. Just so you know. Unlike a certain blogger, we wouldn’t tear you apart for being wrong. You’d just be one of us – human.
1. I really like your books. But.
2. The treatment of women in your books makes me cringe and detracts from my overall enjoyment. And I’d never recommend them to my wife or any female friends who like fantasy – which is a shame because there’s a shortage of good writing in the genre, and your books are pretty dazzling on a number of other levels, and I’d like to be able to recommend them to all and sundry.
3. You claim you’re depicting a misogynistic culture to make feminist statements – like, say, ‘A Handmaid’s Tale’. But in ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ the intention of the author is pretty clear. Not so in your own work – whatever your intentions as a writer, the outcome is yet another set of fantasy novels in which the female characters are almost all prostitutes who are endlessly raped and degraded in rather lurid prose.
Why do you assume your reading is the ‘really real’ one?
A Handmaid’s Tale has a specific political agenda – it’s supposed to be obvious (to limit the possible range of interpretations). Unlike Atwood, I’m posing a larger moral problem (and trying to cast a wide interpretative net). I have (long) since come to realize that many readers see my posing of the problem as the problem. Even though I know why people do it, I still can’t quite believe my eyes when I read “the outcome is yet another set of fantasy novels in which the female characters are almost all prostitutes who are endlessly raped and degraded in rather lurid prose.” Surely you realize this is a gross exagerration? “Endlessly raped and degraded”? Is anything else in my books “yet another x”? Or is everything bent, twisted into a question or dilemma? Do you think I just happened to suffer a stroke when writing these sections, or could it be that I actually put more care, more worry, into these sections than any other?
Look at this blog, Dude. Nothing I do is simple. It’s my fucking disease.
How am I supposed to read this? Say, “Yeah, your reading is the canonical one. By some magical coincidence, in this one case I really am being that simplistic and hateful.” Or is this the more obvious explanation: you tweak someone’s morals, their patience for nuance goes out the window, and they tend to rationalize and to oversimplify?
Honestly, which one is more likely the case?
Obviously my reading isn’t canonical – I’m just a fan giving feedback to an author he admires, albeit not uncritically. But who does have access to a canonical reading? Uncritical fans? The author? Please.
The intentions of an author don’t always match the outcomes – especially when they’re writing about sexuality and gender issues (for the most hilarious example of this check out the sex scenes in Ayn Rand’s novels). Although it’s ironic that you of all people insist you’re writing about these subjects with rational detachment.
Your books are dense. There’s a lot I don’t understand in them – the fact that they’re challenging is what makes them so great. But when a character who used to be a whore and whose daughter is a whore is forced to hide in the house of . . a whore and listen to her being a whore all day, I don’t find myself challenged, or struggling to comprehend the problems posed by the author, I just roll my eyes and think ‘Bakker sure does have a thing about whores’.
Yeah, I apologize for the tetchiness. I find the more care I take to maintain this blog, the more I get caught out responding in a bad mood. That, and I’ve been down this road so many times before. The fact that so many people have misogynistic readings is a drag to be sure. But the caricatures, all this and all that and everywhere are simply misrepresentations.
Regarding your count: You’re actually missing a Whore! Fate. The world conspires in my books. These kinds of repetitions happen everywhere. Fools. Slaves. Teachers. Prophets. The list literally goes on and on.
As soon as you start counting with a skeptical eye, of course you’re going to roll your eyes. My single biggest mistake was not realizing that so many people would read depiction as endorsement, or oppression as weakness and degradation. As soon as that happens, the cherry-picking begins. A moral stain seems to creep across what you read.
All interpretation works this way. But I was locked in. The whole point was to pull across the grain of the reader’s PC sensibilities, but for a good number of readers, I simply run afoul it.
I know your reading feels like the most natural and obvious one – but that’s just because it’s your reading. It’s always the other readings that don’t sound right.
All I can say, is that your reading wasn’t my intent, and that the text supports many, many other possible interpretations.
Depiction never means endorsement? It could be edorsement by the author, or non endorsement by the author. It could be either way (except in the view of the eyes that wrote it). Yeah, they jumped to a conclusion (and acted on it as well).
But when can anyone tell intent purely from depiction? In a better world, they all would have waited on further research before drawing their conclusion. But certainly as a sample size of one, just from the books alone I couldn’t tell. I had to do more research.
And some depictions out there in the world, they do condone.
It’s not like it’s as clear cut as “It’s always wrong to take the conclusion the other person endorses what they depict”. Though granted, the jumping to it AND acting on it seem over the top and nasty in results – it’s not like the books indicated you were about to do something in real life and they just hadda act immediately on gut instinct – they did and do have time to figure out more. From my measure, that’s the problem. But as said, it’s not as clear cut as “It’s always wrong to assume the person endorses what they depict”.
Or if your already saying this and I’m well behind…gah, dang, then! I do try and keep up, I swear…
Maybe it’s because she has a point?
Too bad he doesn’t have a case.
She does actually. The very fact that you feel female characters must have a reason for being female is very off-putting. I would not classify it as misogynist but it is off-putting, including the way you decide to portray the only job women are allowed to have is as prostitutes or mother.
Also the blog author is female. So not a he.
How many pages have you read?
I’ve read the Prince of Nothing trilogy and Neuropath. I’ve found your works to be horrible at female characters. I might buy some of the Aspect-Emperor books but I don’t plan to because of the female characters. Your books are good, but not good enough to overcome something as glaring as that.
And me not writing female characters you can identify with makes me a misogynist?
No it does not mean that, but she has a point in that your treatment of female characters leaves something to be desired. I didn’t mind in PoN because you had created a society where women could not rise into power, but Neuropath had no such reasons for excluding women. My problem with your writing is that you must have a reason to make a character female. They cannot just be women doing what a male character would do. Now making a female character can be difficult depending on the society present in the novel, and a female soldier in say, The Darkness That Comes Before, would be completely at odds within that novel. I just like seeing female characters for whom their femininity is not the sole reason they exist.
So posing the problem the near-future holds for masculinity and femininity is not a viable narrative option?
[…] Scott Bakker – Sweet Manna – dated 16 August […]