Re: RARA-AVIS: The objection to Stansberry's "The Confession"

From: Max Gilbert ( jmaxgilbert@yahoo.com)
Date: 08 May 2005


--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Tim Bateman" <tim.bateman1@n...> wrote:
> (Jack Bludis):
>
> I do observe that the person who
> called for its banning seems to have read the
> book.
>
>
> (Tim):
>
> I suppose there's a first time for everything.
>
> Tim

Well, I haven't read it (although I have a copy) and probably won't now for a while since I went ahead and read the spoilers (not because of the content--I just don't want the ending fresh in my memory). It sounds to me though, that the criticism of the book is based in part on the author's gender, a critical approach that I find bothersome to say the least because I believe in evaluating a book based on what's on the page and not what may or may not have been in the author's mind. I know someone compared this to Dorothy Hughes' IN A LONELY PLACE, a very disturbing book (& an excellent one), but I doubt that the same people calling for the banning of this book would call for the banning of Hughes' novel for the simple fact that the author was a woman. It also brings to mind the furor of Brent Easton Ellis' AMERICAN PSYCHO (which I haven't read) & the film version directed by Mary Harron (which I have seen and appreciated, I wouldn't say enjoyed). The novel was condemned as a misogynist piece of crap, while critics have talked about the movie as presenting a feminist view of male privelege and violence. I think the movie does present that critique of patriarchy, but whether the book did or not was a mute point to some because Ellis was a man. I guess I'm curious whether the same response to Stansberry's THE CONFESSION would have occurred if it were written under a female pseudonym.

Max

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