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irishlibrarian's review
3.0
The stalking was chilling, yet fascinating. I was riveted for the first half of the book. Then, the author takes a sharp turn and takes us on a ride through the current state of Middle Eastern politics. If he'd kept with the crazy stalking business, it would have been more interesting.
babblinglib's review
3.0
...
I really enjoyed the writing and felt the situation the author found himself in both suffocating and fascinating. However, I think the story about the stalker alone would have made a great article rather than a book. The journey and revelations he had in Jerusalem should have been a separate story. The final chapter didn't have as great an impact as it was meant to because as the reader I wanted to know what was going on with Nasreen and that need kept my attention away from following the story he was actually telling. I can see how Mr. Lasdun pulled them together as part of his overall experience in dealing with this threat, but it didn't work as well on the page....
I do now want to read his other works as his writing was exceptional but this title was either too long or incomplete. I'm still debating which it is keeping me from giving it a higher number of stars.zana_reads_arcs's review
2.0
I'm only halfway through this book but I have very strong thoughts and opinions concerning the hundred or so pages that I have read.
Let me begin...
This is a manual on how NOT to write a memoir.
This is also a good example on how you shouldn't rebuild your reputation if your good name is besmirched. For that, try google. Google probably has much better tips than James Lasdun's sad attempt at vindicating himself.
I'll tell you what this book is actually about. This is a book on how to make your readers despise you more than your alleged stalker. This is a book on how to identify blatant racism and sexism in a self-proclaimed liberal who denies being racist and sexist. This is how you shouldn't lay out your most embarrassing thoughts, desires, and actions to your readers in an attempt to sway them to your side. Granted, at this point in the book, I do not care for Lasdun, or even Nasreen's attacks on Lasdun, for that matter. Destroying someone's reputation through lies and falsehoods is generally not a nice thing to do (and many would advise against it on moral and ethical grounds), but trying to fix your broken reputation by unintentionally telling the public how much of a terrible person you are is probably not the best way to go about it either.
I don't know if Lasdun lacks self-awareness or if he's just being sarcastic and self-deprecating. (I would like to think the latter, but I doubt that was his intention.) Reviewers keep mentioning how he is self-aware, but when it comes to issues such as racism and sexism, he is the very antithesis of self-awareness.
Take the Tintin episode for example. This is, and I'm not joking, a direct quote from his memoir: (after his son quotes a line from Tintin)
I want to repeat that last line again: "I have felt obliged to talk about this with my son, explaining to him that the comedy is okay only because it is directed equally at all cultures, including Tintin's own, and because it is also largely without malice."
I don't know, bro. Maybe look up casual racism and its effects? Since you teach at colleges, maybe enroll in a sociology course or two. I'm sure you'll get a discount for being a faculty member. Or you can google and wiki these topics, since that's what you like to do.
This isn't the only incident that caught my attention.
Lasdun describes an episode where he's sitting next to an Egyptian man on the train. Lasdun has just read an article on the New York Times about the terrorist, Anwar al-Awlaki. When the Egyptian man picks up his cell phone and starts talking in Egyptian Arabic, Lasdun writes about how he associates the man's speech with the article on the terrorist.
Why would you admit these things, and worse yet, publish them?
And then, there is the entire problem of how Lasdun views Nasreen. No, I'm not talking about how she's a malicious stalker out to destroy his reputation through every means possible via the internet. I'm talking about how he views Nasreen as the "corniest archetype of demure Middle Eastern womanhood as concocted in the Western male psyche." He doesn't even bother to deconstruct his viewpoints, instead he goes on and on about Nasreen being Middle Eastern (more specifically Iranian), and he attaches every known stereotype to her identity.
Here is another example: "I, as an Anglo-American Jew, a family man, a published author, a middle-aged male in a position of power (at least from her perspective), was the axis of, shall we say, "virtue," while she, in her own mind at least, was the lone jihadi."
Not only is he racist when it comes to Nasreen, he also holds sexist views concerning her as a woman. This guy just does not understand women, it seems like. Whenever he mentions Nasreen, his prose is littered with impressions of how women are seemingly different just because they are women. It reads worse than a teenage boy trying to understand the concept of girls, women, and female sexuality. (Protip: Women are not a concept.) Lasdun is pretty much a living and breathing example of a Nice Guy™.
I will admit that I did find some parts of his memoir tolerable, and even enjoyable. His thoughts on being a writer strike a chord with me. His descriptions during his travels and his musings (when they're not sexist or racist) are very introspective. I think these are the only things that are keeping me going. At this point, I barely even care about the whole Nasreen episode. That seems more like a subplot compared to all the other things that he writes about. I would've even given one or two of his novels a go if I wasn't so disgusted by his hyperinflated sense of self or his intolerable viewpoints.
I'm not sure if this entire memoir was written to make Lasdum himself more popular than he actually is. He admits that he has a modest readership. I feel like all he wants out of this stalking episode is to make a quick buck and make his name more well known to the general public and entice potential readers. And if this is so, this probably wasn't the smartest way to go about it.
I'm glad I borrowed this book from the library. I'll keep my money, thanks. Or better yet, spend it on an author more deserving of critique, praise, or criticism. I've already wasted enough words on James Lasdun to last a lifetime.
Poor guy will probably read this review and think I'm Nasreen. But really though, who the fuck cares at this point? Grow the fuck up, dude.
Let me begin...
This is a manual on how NOT to write a memoir.
This is also a good example on how you shouldn't rebuild your reputation if your good name is besmirched. For that, try google. Google probably has much better tips than James Lasdun's sad attempt at vindicating himself.
I'll tell you what this book is actually about. This is a book on how to make your readers despise you more than your alleged stalker. This is a book on how to identify blatant racism and sexism in a self-proclaimed liberal who denies being racist and sexist. This is how you shouldn't lay out your most embarrassing thoughts, desires, and actions to your readers in an attempt to sway them to your side. Granted, at this point in the book, I do not care for Lasdun, or even Nasreen's attacks on Lasdun, for that matter. Destroying someone's reputation through lies and falsehoods is generally not a nice thing to do (and many would advise against it on moral and ethical grounds), but trying to fix your broken reputation by unintentionally telling the public how much of a terrible person you are is probably not the best way to go about it either.
I don't know if Lasdun lacks self-awareness or if he's just being sarcastic and self-deprecating. (I would like to think the latter, but I doubt that was his intention.) Reviewers keep mentioning how he is self-aware, but when it comes to issues such as racism and sexism, he is the very antithesis of self-awareness.
Take the Tintin episode for example. This is, and I'm not joking, a direct quote from his memoir: (after his son quotes a line from Tintin)
"It comes from our favorite Tintin book, The Blue Lotus, or, as I have somehow permitted myself to call it, The Brue Rotus; regressing, in my son's company, to the soft racism that pervaded the world of my own childhood, where nobody thought twice about mimicking foreign accents for a cheap laugh. The Tintin books, being all about encounters with foreigners, encourage this kind of low humor when it comes to reading them aloud. They contain a great deal of the comic racial stereotyping characteristic of their time. Being of my own time, I have felt obliged to talk about this with my son, explaining to him that the comedy is okay only because it is directed equally at all cultures, including Tintin's own, and because it is also largely without malice."
I want to repeat that last line again: "I have felt obliged to talk about this with my son, explaining to him that the comedy is okay only because it is directed equally at all cultures, including Tintin's own, and because it is also largely without malice."
I don't know, bro. Maybe look up casual racism and its effects? Since you teach at colleges, maybe enroll in a sociology course or two. I'm sure you'll get a discount for being a faculty member. Or you can google and wiki these topics, since that's what you like to do.
This isn't the only incident that caught my attention.
Lasdun describes an episode where he's sitting next to an Egyptian man on the train. Lasdun has just read an article on the New York Times about the terrorist, Anwar al-Awlaki. When the Egyptian man picks up his cell phone and starts talking in Egyptian Arabic, Lasdun writes about how he associates the man's speech with the article on the terrorist.
Why would you admit these things, and worse yet, publish them?
And then, there is the entire problem of how Lasdun views Nasreen. No, I'm not talking about how she's a malicious stalker out to destroy his reputation through every means possible via the internet. I'm talking about how he views Nasreen as the "corniest archetype of demure Middle Eastern womanhood as concocted in the Western male psyche." He doesn't even bother to deconstruct his viewpoints, instead he goes on and on about Nasreen being Middle Eastern (more specifically Iranian), and he attaches every known stereotype to her identity.
Here is another example: "I, as an Anglo-American Jew, a family man, a published author, a middle-aged male in a position of power (at least from her perspective), was the axis of, shall we say, "virtue," while she, in her own mind at least, was the lone jihadi."
Not only is he racist when it comes to Nasreen, he also holds sexist views concerning her as a woman. This guy just does not understand women, it seems like. Whenever he mentions Nasreen, his prose is littered with impressions of how women are seemingly different just because they are women. It reads worse than a teenage boy trying to understand the concept of girls, women, and female sexuality. (Protip: Women are not a concept.) Lasdun is pretty much a living and breathing example of a Nice Guy™.
I will admit that I did find some parts of his memoir tolerable, and even enjoyable. His thoughts on being a writer strike a chord with me. His descriptions during his travels and his musings (when they're not sexist or racist) are very introspective. I think these are the only things that are keeping me going. At this point, I barely even care about the whole Nasreen episode. That seems more like a subplot compared to all the other things that he writes about. I would've even given one or two of his novels a go if I wasn't so disgusted by his hyperinflated sense of self or his intolerable viewpoints.
I'm not sure if this entire memoir was written to make Lasdum himself more popular than he actually is. He admits that he has a modest readership. I feel like all he wants out of this stalking episode is to make a quick buck and make his name more well known to the general public and entice potential readers. And if this is so, this probably wasn't the smartest way to go about it.
I'm glad I borrowed this book from the library. I'll keep my money, thanks. Or better yet, spend it on an author more deserving of critique, praise, or criticism. I've already wasted enough words on James Lasdun to last a lifetime.
Poor guy will probably read this review and think I'm Nasreen. But really though, who the fuck cares at this point? Grow the fuck up, dude.
pelicaaan's review
4.0
A very well-written, thoughtful account. More details here: http://newportlibrary.blogspot.com/2013/03/give-me-everything-you-have.html
lola425's review
3.0
Horrifying to say the least, and Lasdun is certainly honest about his reaction to the stalking and the mistakes that he made in dealing with it. No one could imagine that what seemed like a legitimate mentor situation, peppered here and there with innocent flirtation could explode into the kind of soul-sucking, nearly life-ruining experience that Lasdun was forced t contend with. He did, however, lose me when he made the comparison of men wrongly accused of sexual transgressions with the experience of women in repressive traditional societies. Simplistic comparison and offensive to me. Men, regardless of how wrongly they've been accused, still retain the power inherent in being male in our society. Repressive, traditional societies devalue women at their core, any accusations of sexual transgressions levelled against them come from a society that doesn't NEED to be convinced of a woman's vileness. She is soiled at the start by virtue of being a women. Not the same.
booksinbedinthornhill's review
4.0
Compelling reading; masterful writing. A powerful reminder, just in case you need one, of the Internet's potential as a tool for malice, prejudice, and unfounded but terribly effective attacks upon Reputation.
palliem's review against another edition
1.0
I wanted to like this, I really did, but it just felt like there was no point to any of his story. There were long digressions that had nothing to do with the story I thought he'd be telling--the stalking. And the book seemed ever more pointless, as according to the memoir, the stalking is ongoing, so there's no conclusion. Of course, that's certainly not Lasdun's fault, but it made the book feel rambling and purposeless. I had to really push through to finish this after Part 1, and that's never a good sign.
heather_g's review against another edition
2.0
multiple other reviewers felt the same way: the title is misleading as it only spend 1/4 of the story on the stalking part, then the author goes off on seemingly random tangent side-stories. It could have been better but alas.