COVID-19
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No, I am not a health expert or a scientific expert. So I will not try to
offer you any of my own advice. Instead I am going to shamelessly pinch
from Fetl...
4 years ago
Monday, 6 June 2011
holiday reading
I'm back!
Yes thank you to the commenters on my previous post. My break was a little rest and relaxation and it was very enjoyable.
I read a very popular thriller while I was away. It had me gripped - it was well written and exciting and I liked the characterisation. However there was one aspect that troubled me. Sadistic violence and abuse of women was part of at least three separate threads in the story. Each of the evil and violent men had their comeuppance as was dealt with severely. So the moral was that such behaviour was evil. However given that this was used gratuitously in the novel I felt there was a hypocritical approach in almost using it as titillation to draw in the reader. It had the opposite effect on me when I read one such event and I really felt for the woman concerned - who I had begun to like a lot in the novel. Perhaps also I did not like the fact that some things used in a consensual bdsm context were described here used in such a seriously abusive way. At the end of the book there was a short extract from the follow up book in the series. What did it contain? Yet another scene of violence on my favourite woman in the book! This just reinforced to me that the violence against women was being used in a gratuitous and titillating way and turned me off wanting to buy the next book. Before that I had wanted to because most of the book was about journalistic research, finance and computer hacking in a thrilling way and described some interesting characters and relationships.
I also fell in love.
No - not for real but with one of the women in the novel! Perhaps it was that mixture of intelligence, strength and vulnerability. Or perhaps it was that she reminded me strongly of someone with whom I was once very close. In most ways they are totally different - but there were some qualities that I felt were very alike.
So when I found her bound and prepared for torture in the excerpt from the next book - I wanted to do serious violence to the author for putting her in such a situation again!!!!!
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20 comments:
That is so sweet..
Welcome home. I hope you're feeling suitably refreshed :-)
The next two books are not as gratuitous as the first one. The second book as some, not nearly what the first did, and the third book does not go into that area.
You owe it to yourself to read on. It is the best I have read in forever. I don't know if you know this or not but the original title of the book(s) in Swedish is "Men who Hate Women".
Welcome back, hope you had a good time and came back well relaxed and refreshed.
I'm missing it here, and it's killing me...what's the book?
the third book is intense. and it has a duel function as a mirror. ;-)
Thank you for the kind welcomes home.
Well done David and Deb for recognising the book I was talking about! I think between you you may have tempted me to read the next in the series. I just need another holiday now to give me the time!
Thanks David for letting me know the title of the original in Swedish. I hadn't known that but it was an explicit theme throughout.
To put Liquid Assets and other readers out of your misery the book I was reading is a Swedish Novel by Steig Larsson called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It is the first book in the Millennium Trilogy. Despite my negative comments I would certainly recommend it as an exciting and gripping thriller.
P xx
Oh - and yes, thank you, I am feeling refreshed. I had a very relaxing time.
Co-incidentally I watched the film of the third book last weekend:-" The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest". If it is the heroine of the books that you have fallen in love with, and I think it is as you describe her exactly, then I hope I will not be spoiling it for you if I tell you not to worry about her too much.
Yay a new book to read!
Thanks Sir and welcome back!
Welcome back,am intrigued now to read the book!!!
i hope you had a lovely break.
blossom xx
Welcome back my friend! Glad you had a good time away :)
Haha seems more English speaking than Swedish reads those books! I must confess I haven't (because I don't read books in Swedish and it would feel kinda odd reading a Swedish book in English *LOL*)
But yes, the Swedish title is a lot more descriptive I think (so much is lost in translation)
And may I ask; do we have another Swede in the house? ^^
Looks like I have a new book to check out on my down time.
Thank you Alice for putting my mind at rest. I didn't realise the trilogy had been filmed already!
Enjoy your reading mouse, blossom and Southern Sir.
You don't read books in Swedish Sweet girl? Why is that? But yes I can imagine it would be very strange for you to read first a Swedish book in English translation. Though if you had first read it in Swedish I can imagine it would be interesting to see how the translator had interpreted it and whether you felt he had got it right.
P xx
P: I don't read books in Swedish because I got so used to English that I cannot actually really comprehend what I read in Swedish *LOL*
And I can tell you already what i'd think of the translation: CRAP! Because translations always are! 99% of the time they get it wrong; the names, the context, the feeling of it...yeah you get the picture. (me critical?! Never! *L*)
Ahh. Thank you. It's been sitting on the shelf gathering dust, I suppose it's time to actually read it.
Welcome back and thanks for the book review.
Summer is my reading time so I'm glad for the new titles.
Having read this post JZ has decided to publish a list of summer reading on her blog. You can read it here.
I'll visit there often to see if you have added to it!
P xx
Ooo, yes, please!!
The more, the merrier. :-)
I haven't read any of the books but I've just watched the movie of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' (book 1) and frankly I was very disturbed by the rape scene where she was handcuffed and tied to a bed and fucked up the arse til she was bleeding and couldn't walk properly. Entertainment? I was watching it with my Sir. I had a few moments of regression to my zealous lesbian separatist youth. I found myself looking at him with distaste. Why was he watching it and what was he feeling and was he entertained and was I entertained and should I give him a row for being a male who could sit and watch that without commenting or switching it off?
We discussed it a lot. I am my Sir's willing sub, but that sort of stuff makes me hate the world and all men who live in it - unless they protest fiercely against all violence against women. I need to hear that from men.
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