So, you know the question isn't even answered in this book, right?
I picked this up on a whim at The Book Thing in Baltimore. The title made me laugh aSo, you know the question isn't even answered in this book, right?
I picked this up on a whim at The Book Thing in Baltimore. The title made me laugh and I thought it might make a decent gag gift of sorts for a feminist friend. Of course, I needed to read the book before I passed it off. Only decent thing to do, isn't it?
I kind of wish I hadn't.
Generally I enjoy sociological tirades, however inflamed they are. I've a decent background in anthropology and I'm no stranger to strife between the sexes being decently examined. It can be interesting to view the more radical beliefs, though too often poor examples are used. It can be interesting to see what other people think, and in turn be made to view things from an alternative perspective. Even though I (foolishly?) believe I'm more open-minded than most I found this book to be ridiculous.
The examples Maureen Dowd set forth to defend her rather shaky slightly non-existent hypothesis seemed to apply more specifically to her own situation than to women in general. She talked about being called a bitch, about men writing to respond to her column more generally than women did, and about her own experiences working in DC. Women in politics and offering political commentary, it seems, are the same as women everywhere else. I can't help but think that area is a bit more specialized and more volatile than others for some reason...
In addition to this her hypothesis was unclear. She seemed at points to believe that women would be better off if men no longer existed - an entirely chapter was devoted to how the Y chromosone will be extinct in 10,000 to 10,000,000 years and how women will then TRULY rule the world - but then also noted how men are feminizing themselves and how that should be viewed as a victory. She bemoaned flirting in the office, but then discussed how it's insulting when men didn't flirt. It was very confusing.
At the end of this book I don't feel I really understand what it was setting out to be. It was just disorganized vitriol pointed at no one in particular. ...more
Jerry Langton decides to delve into why rats have been around for so long, how they coexist with us, and why people decide to have tOH NO, NOT RATS!!!
Jerry Langton decides to delve into why rats have been around for so long, how they coexist with us, and why people decide to have them as pets. He does so with a distinct anti-rat perspective on the world, and a disturbing unwillingness to ever waver in his opinion or seek out people who think differently than himself. That, my friend, is why the book failed for me. The inherent prejudice against rats and rat-owners that permeated every page and the outright disgust that just saturated his language. That was why it got the dreaded one-star.
Langton has some interesting history of rats, he follows the basic run down of "this is why rats are interesting" that any writer would. Their ribs can collapse being the main fact that seems to shock him. He discounts their inherent intelligence when just about all scientific papers rate them as among one of the most intelligent animals out there, and he counts them as viscous and ready to attack when even the rat hunters he talks to admit that they only do so when disturbed. It's disturbing, just not in the way he meant it to be.
The true failing of this book, however, was the way that he wrote about rat owners. I've owned rats in my time. I found them to be very clean, very affectionate, curious and entertaining pets. I was only ever bit by a rat once, and that was when I startled him and truly deserved it. Langton puts rat owners into two groups: people owning a rat for the novelty and attention seeking deviant nature of it, and people owning rats as an apology to the species and taking it on as a burden. What the hell? What about people who just genuinely like the animal and what it offers...? Nevermind the fact he characterized the first group as being largely obese women with multiple piercings and or tattoos. Just... why?...more
I picked it up on a whim, finding the title rather hilarious, and kept it as more of curiosity than anything else overI really didn't enjoy this book.
I picked it up on a whim, finding the title rather hilarious, and kept it as more of curiosity than anything else over the years. Finally sitting down to read it.. well, it was about as good as the title indicates. The male lead was Doctor Nick Necrophiliac and the female lead was Ms. Naive.
The lyrics included the wondrous phrase "Draculame, you don't scare me."
It was just resting there, half-hidden behind more respectable books such as Siddhartha and The Great Gatsby. The booI can't believe I read this book.
It was just resting there, half-hidden behind more respectable books such as Siddhartha and The Great Gatsby. The book looked vaguely familiar to me. I had probably heard about it once or twice over the years. Shrugging, I picked it up and began leafing through it idly. This was a mistake.
The second I begin reading a book it is like a trainwreck. I can't stop. It doesn't matter how much I dislike the book, or like it - I just feel the need to finish what I begin. Such was my experience reading this. I felt obligated to finish it, including the two appendices, and thus, I did.
I agree with previous reviewers. This book was like a sociology lesson in the sort of person I never want to meet. I refuse to acknowledge they exist, more often than not, these sorts of players. By the time that Tucker Max figured out that there are women with "game" who inevitably play the players and what not... yeah. I felt he deserved it, and more.
This book wasn't soul-shattering or horrifying, it was more simply... sad, disgusting, and unfortunate. It's one thing to live your life drinking, fornicating, and writing about it - but can you at least do it in a decent style? Hunter S. Thompson had more class than Tucker Max and far better writing chops.
So basically, yeah, I smirked maybe twice and all in all just wish I could have enjoyed it more. I feel vaguely ashamed to have read it. But there you go. It happens. ...more
I enjoy reading what the fringies write, and this was no exception to the rule. While a bit out of date, thisYeah, yeah, stop looking at me like that.
I enjoy reading what the fringies write, and this was no exception to the rule. While a bit out of date, this collection of essays still preached what one would expect: Childress, Schoch, Hancock, et al - while not writing there in force, were still being written about in force. While this book was light on the aliens, it was still very strong when it comes to the Mu civilization and the like.
Lego linguistics, poor understanding of physics, and more were to be found. I give the book credit for speaking out against Yonaguni and the Bimini Road, but take away a lot of that credit for their inability to understand why diamond saws aren't needed. I also take away points for them not understanding how Coral Castle was a man-made creation, nor even referencing it. Coral Castle proved that a single man could build something akin to the pyramids.
I wish that people would approach books like this in good humor, give them a chance, and then take away from them everything with a grain of salt. The articles within the book at times entirely contradicted one another: The Ice Age was a lie, but the Ice Age had to exist for the theory of catastrophism to triumph over uniformatarianism. I don't quite get it.
Well, today I learned that Einstein believed in Atlantis. I'm open to Atlantis having existed in some form or another back in the day, and I appreciate their debunking of Thera. While some of the facts they levied against Thera were inaccurate, it still was a decent effort.
So, yeah, I didn't like it. I had fun reading it all the same....more
I am slightly ashamed to have even read this book. When the front cover read that this was a "dangerous book" I did not understand that it meant "dangI am slightly ashamed to have even read this book. When the front cover read that this was a "dangerous book" I did not understand that it meant "dangerous" as in "this will eat away at the gray matter within your skull dangerous." I didn't know that it meant I would be reading in depth about someone grabbing his wife whom he no longer loved off of the toilet while she was pooping in order to throw her on the bed and shag her. I didn't know it meant I would be learning what a vasectomy smelled like, or how not being well-endowed would lead you to eventually commit murder. No, I was expecting "Dangerous" in the way, say Harlan Ellison, Stephen King, Joe Hill, or even Cormac McCarthy is dangerous. All of the above have described similarly disgusting scenes and topics. All of the above have done so with style. Clifford Meth just wasn't my style.
His writing was a bit too harsh for me. In the past I've praised Robert Louis Stevenson and Joe Hill for the economy of their words. They seem to write in their stories, novels, and descriptions only the bare minimum of what they need to set a tone or invoke a proper scene. Clifford Meth seemed to be going for a similar style, but like Chuck Palahniuk this ended in all of his stories (and the title novella "One Small Voice") having the exact same tone. At some points I found myself having to flip back to get the characters straight in my head - aside from the size of their members there seemed to be little distinguishing one from the other.
All in all, there were perhaps two stories that I enjoyed out of the entire collection. The final story, "Pillow Talk," made me laugh out loud. Aside from that, the story about Anne I found strangely touching... though it suffered the exact same problems of tone that I mentioned earlier. That I enjoyed the stories again, is putting a bit too much praise there. If I was a teenage man? Maybe then I'd like the book more and I'd think it encapsulated my viewpoint. As a girl in her early 20s, however, nothing in the book squares up with the male friends I have, nor what they've chatted to me about.
I think Stephen King does a better job of balancing a man's attraction towards a woman versus the lust he feels towards anything with breasts....more
Hilary "Fox"
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