What I'm reading, September 2013

[lampbane]

I'm not doing this because everyone else is. Rather, it's because I'm having thoughts that I want to record for when I write the eventual review.

Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationshipsby Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá

Comments

[tricianna]

It's a bit awkward to go all fangirly about stuff that you write -- since we actually know each other beyond our LJs -- but your thoughts on Zoo City are beautifully stated. I'm glad that you share it with us.

[lampbane]

I would have responded sooner, but I didn't want to ruin the moment. ;)

We can talk about this more next time I see you (soon), or at book club (which is supposed to be October 19th... we set the date at last session but I never made the FB invite). But it ties into something Glynnis reblogged on Tumblr some time back, about how fantasy writers could make up anything they want to, and have any type of characters they want to, and set it anywhere they want... and yet, they choose medieval England. I think it's a function of them being inspired by what they read, and if what they read is Tolkien and everyone who was inspired by Tolkien... then we're just going to get more of the same.

[pseudohistorian]

A lot of people I know have been reading/recommending Sex at Dawn, but your thoughts on it make me much more unlikely to do the same. (Is there any reason they dwell on Hobbes so much?) Your description also belies the authors' claims that they aren't advocating for one lifestyle/perspective over another, which can be an issue with books about alternative sexualities that claim to be neutral on their subjects. (The Ethical Slut has had similar criticisms, for example.)

If you're interested in genre fiction with a more diverse authorship/cast, have you read anything by Nalo Hopkinson?

[lampbane]

I think the argument for dwelling on Hobbes would be that a lot of scholarly papers on prehistoric life were based on Hobbes, but even so... being concise is better. And I do think they're advocating quite strongly for poly lifestyles, not because they say "this is how your relationship should be," but because they're just so negative about monogamous culture and trying to argue it works for no one. The thing is, later on in the book (after I wrote this post) they finally address modern life, and they take a softer tone, which is fine, but that's after 2/3 of the book is done. I would have liked to read more about that, because it's fine to tell people that they're meant to be polygamous, but there's very little information on how we're getting back to that, if we are (and I think we are